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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Marine biologist.  But screenwriter may be worse.

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1 hour ago, austingirl said:

To set my POV, I'm an elder millenial (b. 1981) white woman with a journalism degree who has exclusively worked in big tech marketing and PR my entire career. I understand what Bozo is getting at re: addressing why so many younger men are disillusioned with progressive politics and that we need to better address it if we want to win them over from the MAGA side. This article, however, is a poor avenue for a good discussion around this because the author is a whiny ass bitch. For much of this article, I kept thinking "no shit, that's something every generation of non-white, non-male has felt at some point. It's not poignant just because now YOU personally are feeling this pain." Some of it made me laugh out loud at the lack of self-awareness. Allow me to provide examples:

I also have two boys - Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Straight white males. What do I say when they ask about their hopes and dreams? Something along the lines of: "The world isn't fair, but in the vast majority of scenarios you already have a leg up being straight white boys. You do have to work hard, and you might get passed up sometimes for objectively unfair reasons. You might lose when you deserve to win. This happens to most people and is not unique to you or your circumstances. When it happens to you - and it will - you will not improve things by getting angry and spiraling and creating viral TikToks about it. All that gets you is surrounded by more anger and hatred. Look for ways to effect change without wallowing in your hurt. Talk to people in real life and not just online."

I don't know what to say to guys like Jacob Savage. I'm sorry that attempts to reverse hundreds of years of discrimination against others have resulted in you feeling like sometimes you got passed over for jobs because of who you are?

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Posted
1 hour ago, washparkhorn said:

If "the medium is the message,” an opinion piece in Compact magazine about the problems that younger white males face forces one to think about what it means to publish that piece in this specific media. 

Compact is not a neutral place. Its main point as a medium is:

  • The Liberal Consensus is no longer effective. The goal is to dismantle the dominant liberal worldview, which encompasses both progressive and neoliberal viewpoints.
  • Combining leftist economic ideas with rightist social and cultural concerns is okay.
  • It gives intellectual and political legitimacy to ideas that mainstream conservative (National Review) and leftist (Jacobin) outlets think are wrong.
  Hide contents

The medium (Compact) has a big effect on how this specific grievance is understood. It changes the meaning of "grievance" from a personal one to a systemic one. In right-wing circles, the same issue could be called "liberal wokeness is attacking white men," which is about cultural victimhood.  In Compact, the message of the medium changes it to:

1. The situation is a sign of bigger problems with liberalism and late capitalism. The assertion is that young white men are not only victims of anti-white rhetoric but also suffer from economic dispossession, the disintegration of community institutions, and an isolating culture fostered by elite liberalism. The enemy is not "Black Lives Matter" itself, but the neoliberal system that uses identity politics to keep working-class people from working together.

2. It shows that a political realignment is both possible and needed. The message from the medium is that the far right is now getting these white men who are worried about money and don't fit in with their culture. But they should really be part of a new, illiberal populist group. The piece is a way to get people to join that group and support it. It says, "Your complaints are valid, but the answer from the right isn't good enough." We can give you what you want: economic populism and a critique of the power of the elite.

3. It says that a topic that was once off-limits is now important enough to talk about. Most major media either thinks that "white male grievance" is only important to far-right extremists or that it should be ignored or made fun of. It says “This is a serious demographic and political analysis, not just white bigotry.”

4. It shows what "reactionary left" or "left conservatism" is like in real life. It says: "We have broken the old political categories." This doesn't make sense with your old left/right map. 

The Meta-Message is about political strategy and worries about demographics on a bigger scale. It knows that the traditional base of leftist politics (a united working class) is falling apart. It wants to win back some people who feel left out by the left by addressing their cultural fears on non-liberal grounds and promising economic salvation. The main point is a cold political calculation: to build a successful populist alliance against the liberal elite, you need to meet the needs of the largest, most politically active group of people right now, even if it makes cosmopolitan libs uncomfortable.

If "the medium is the message," then this piece says, "The pain of young white men is the best proof that capitalism has failed in every way: economically, culturally, and spiritually." It's not a right-wing problem. If we want to build a new, strong political coalition that goes beyond the dead left-right divide and gets rid of the crooked elite, we need to talk about it seriously and without liberal taboos.”

The play is about forming coalitions and making political triangulations. The medium gives it an ideological context that turns a complaint that could be seen as conservative into what can be called a “revolutionary critique.”

 

Yeah, as noted on the thread where this first came up, this is a "common good" site.

They're the more intelligent and polite variant of MAGA.  The common-gooders do analyze problems pretty well, but their solutions are too moralistic for and probably most of us.

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Posted
But that’s not the point, which is the point. 

Oh, I get the point. The point is that opposition (left) messaging is utterly missing these types. I agree, it clearly is.

So, we need to speak to whiny babies the way you talk to whiny babies when you want to manipulate them. Tell them the sweet lies they want to hear, and tell them that everything that they find upsetting is actually the fault of someone else. I suggest blaming the Dutch, but I’m willing to workshop it.
Hoping? I’m hoping that progressives begin to admit the possibility that their political project should go back to welcoming and advocating for any person who is getting the short end of the stick. 

Sure. But they think they are getting the short end of the stick because OTHER people struggling to make it are maybe not living as shitty lives as they did before.
The author doesn’t want advocacy for him. He wants advantages that he thinks he’s entitled to. See below.
#3 the data does not match his argument.  I posted the statistical data that shows that during the timeline he documents the hiring of women in that field matched the percentages of those attaining degrees in that field.  So Ascribing the outcome to DEI without taking into account the pool of candidates available is leaving out a significant factor in that outcome that was inconvenient for the author.
 
If he wanted to continue to see a 57:43 M:F ratio in hiring when the new graduate pool was 34:66 what he was really arguing for was more male bias not an even playing field. 

BINGO BINGO BINGO. They do NOT want equality. They want a return to the bias in their favor. Women are getting hired at a 60% clip because the pool of qualified grads is 60% women (again, I offered my observations from law and trained pastors; the pool of quality grads has a materially lower percentage of white males than it did 30 years ago).
If 30% of the quality grads are white males, then the pool of new hires should have a similar percentage.
The author doesn’t want that. He wants a return to not just higher percentages from a day when there were more quality white male grads, he wants a return to the inherent advantage that built in bias also gave them.
I'm not sure progressives have adopted a political project that wouldn't. A broader point, and perhaps where you're missing what the other posters are saying, is that not every person who claims they were wronged has actually been wronged. We want to be a big tent political movement, yes. At the same time, we lose credibility when there's an obvious strike and we call it a ball. When I see white millennial men unable to receive undeserved career opportunities at the same rate their Gen X and Boomer counterparts received them, I don't feel sorry for them, I feel sorry for the qualified nonwhite and women Gen X and Boomers who got passed over.

Also a bingo. It comes down to the fact that they don’t want equality, they want the advantage and favorable bias their parents and grandparents had.

Should we try to appeal to them to get their votes? Absolutely. Lie and tell them whatever they want to hear, shameless, impossible lies absolutely work.

Then go about policies aimed at changing systems as a whole and at weakening oligarchs. Everyone will benefit. But that benefit will probably be equal, and we know that won’t be enough for the whiny titty baby crowd, the bunch of specialest, fragilest snowflakes to ever exist. They will bitch and cry till they get the full suite of biases and advantages in their favor again. How do we know? Because when given ANY power (see this admin), that’s exactly the policy outcome they pursue.
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Posted

I too haven’t yet read the article due to Christmas chaos, but I will eventually. Some uninformed thoughts:

I’m a late genX college professor who got into higher education a bit later than most, so my professor job search and doctoral experience was firmly millennial.

1. Early 2010s at a world-famous doctoral program, one of our professors gave a few lectures about how to get a professor gig. He repeatedly made a point that if you’re part some underrepresented group, make sure to communicate that in your application materials. He cynically said to just send a picture along but made no mention of how to pick the right tree for the picture. At least in his view, it mattered.

2. It took me a few years to find a professor gig. A big part of the problem was the lack of assistant professor openings due to fallout from 2008 and the huge reliance on adjuncts. At the same time, the jobs that were filled were filled by people with objectively weaker CVs. I couldn’t even get an interview.
 

Now a decadish into the professor game I’ll still say, I was better on paper than many of the people getting hired for these jobs. Having served on hiring committees, they simply weren’t better candidates. Maybe there are other reasons, existing relationships for example, but the experience was frustrating and felt unfair. I didn’t turn my angst into a fandom of racist podcasters or whatever kids these days are listening to, but it could’ve happened if not for NPR putting out old episodes of Car Talk.
 

My current gig is a better fit for me and everything worked out for the best, but those years were frustrating.

 

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Posted
13 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

Why do you keep talking about angry millennial white men? White millennial men are the least racist generation of white men there is. 

I’m talking about millennial males because that’s who the essay is about, and it’s who I saw this happening to at that time. I infer they are angry because men under 50 shifted from supporting both Clinton and  Biden by about 10 to a narrow Trump majority in 24.
I never said anything about them being racist, and as I made clear earlier I think this phenomenon was general to millennial men, but particularly the white ones. 

13 hours ago, TexasEd said:

I'll agree that there is a population of white males that believe they have been shafted because they believe the things that Rush, Hannity, Trump and others have told them.

No, and I don’t think it’s productive to assign them motives, for two reasons:

1) Millennials never listened to Rush or Hannity. I know what you are getting at about media, but it doesn’t apply to them. 
2) Their behavior shifted. Trump didn’t win them over. Democrats lost them. 
 

But there’s a broader point here and it had a lot of do with my purpose in starting this thread. And I’m going to put it in all caps not to yell at you, but to catch the eye of people skimming a long post.

80% OF THE AMERICAN ADULT POPULATION IS GETTING SHAFTED. And on top of that, another 19% is mostly doing OK but only because they have been conscripted as Janissaries in service of the top 1%. 

Most progressives (who, not for nothing, live securely within that 19%) would read that paragraph and nod their head. But for some reason, progressives (broadly speaking) look at 28% of those people getting shafted and say, essentially, “fuck ‘em.”

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Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

We can commit to helping the disadvantaged poor, including the white males in that group, without agreeing that DEI policies have systematically and unfairly hurt a subcategory of white males. If that is all you want, you got it. 

I never said anything about DEI policies or the disadvantaged poor, not sure what you are referring to there. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted (edited)
13 hours ago, austingirl said:

This article, however, is a poor avenue for a good discussion around this because the author is a whiny ass bitch. For much of this article, I kept thinking "no shit, that's something every generation of non-white, non-male has felt at some point. It's not poignant just because now YOU personally are feeling this pain." Some of it made me laugh out loud at the lack of self-awareness.

Good post, agree about all of this. But I am fascinated by the virality of it, because it has resonated with so many people. Some of that is because it’s been picked up and amplified by the right wing social media ecosystem, but initially it was apparently organic and I don’t think that happens unless people recognize their own lives in something. Even the whining, silly as it is, speaks to the despair some readers are feeling about their future. 
 

Which, again, is fertile ground. The nexus of limited opportunity and despair is supposed to be the progressive wheelhouse. But instead, we look at this one group and recoil. 

This is an aside- the point above about “the disadvantaged poor” is very telling, because that’s who affluent progressives aren’t.
In other words they want to do sympathy, not empathy. When they see somebody like them having a bad time, except less privileged and 10 years younger, and it seems to give them the ick.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
36 minutes ago, Mole said:

Now a decadish into the professor game I’ll still say, I was better on paper than many of the people getting hired for these jobs. Having served on hiring committees, they simply weren’t better candidates. Maybe there are other reasons, existing relationships for example, but the experience was frustrating and felt unfair. I didn’t turn my angst into a fandom of racist podcasters or whatever kids these days are listening to, but it could’ve happened if not for NPR putting out old episodes of Car Talk.

Prepare to have your personal lived experience DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC

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Posted
17 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I never said anything about DEI policies or the disadvantaged poor, not sure what you are referring to there. 

The article is about DEI policies hurting white, millennial males. Again, I don't think you actually know what point you're trying to make. Ostensibly you've asked us to agree that this is happening and that a well intentioned policy is having negative consequences. Many posts have pointed out while we may understand why he feels that way, the objective facts simply don't support it. For some reason, you seem to find these responses unacceptable and disappointing. It seems the only response you want is complete agreement this bad thing is happening. 

I get that anecdotes exist. I get that people may feel that they are being treated unfairly. I empathize with the anger and resentment that feeling can create. But I also think it is mistake to blindly agree with what I believe is a faulty analysis of the problem. I can commit to addressing actual problems that contribute to their lot in life, including inequity in how the fruits of labor are distributed. 

This isn't me rejecting someone's "personal lived experience" as you want to say. Again, I empathize with the way they are feeling. But just because they feel that way doesn't make it true. Are there individual instances of unfair treatment at companies that had poorly implemented DEI policies? Sure, I believe there are. Is there widespread unfair discrimination against white, millennial men? No. That statistics don't support that. Those men just don't have the same level of unfair privilege that they've had before. 28% of the population doesn't get to have 70% of the good jobs. And it especially doesn't get to do it when entering fields where it only makes up 10% of the applicants. 

What does unfairly affect a lot of white, millennial men is the refusal of the wealthy to share in the fruits of everyone else's labor. If they did so, you'd have more, better paying jobs, and more opportunities for advancement. I'm down for fixing that. And I'm down for telling them I understand your frustration, but this is how we address that issue, not blaming the DEI boogie man. 

Again, I ask you, what are you trying to accomplish here? Why are you disappointed in what I see as a pretty thoughtful discussion? If you don't believe there has been systematic discrimination against these men, why are you insisting that we agree with them?

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Posted
13 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

If "the medium is the message,” an opinion piece in Compact magazine about the problems that younger white males face forces one to think about what it means to publish that piece in this specific media. 

Compact is not a neutral place. Its main point as a medium is:

  • The Liberal Consensus is no longer effective. The goal is to dismantle the dominant liberal worldview, which encompasses both progressive and neoliberal viewpoints.
  • Combining leftist economic ideas with rightist social and cultural concerns is okay.
  • It gives intellectual and political legitimacy to ideas that mainstream conservative (National Review) and leftist (Jacobin) outlets think are wrong.
  Hide contents

The medium (Compact) has a big effect on how this specific grievance is understood. It changes the meaning of "grievance" from a personal one to a systemic one. In right-wing circles, the same issue could be called "liberal wokeness is attacking white men," which is about cultural victimhood.  In Compact, the message of the medium changes it to:

1. The situation is a sign of bigger problems with liberalism and late capitalism. The assertion is that young white men are not only victims of anti-white rhetoric but also suffer from economic dispossession, the disintegration of community institutions, and an isolating culture fostered by elite liberalism. The enemy is not "Black Lives Matter" itself, but the neoliberal system that uses identity politics to keep working-class people from working together.

2. It shows that a political realignment is both possible and needed. The message from the medium is that the far right is now getting these white men who are worried about money and don't fit in with their culture. But they should really be part of a new, illiberal populist group. The piece is a way to get people to join that group and support it. It says, "Your complaints are valid, but the answer from the right isn't good enough." We can give you what you want: economic populism and a critique of the power of the elite.

3. It says that a topic that was once off-limits is now important enough to talk about. Most major media either thinks that "white male grievance" is only important to far-right extremists or that it should be ignored or made fun of. It says “This is a serious demographic and political analysis, not just white bigotry.”

4. It shows what "reactionary left" or "left conservatism" is like in real life. It says: "We have broken the old political categories." This doesn't make sense with your old left/right map. 

The Meta-Message is about political strategy and worries about demographics on a bigger scale. It knows that the traditional base of leftist politics (a united working class) is falling apart. It wants to win back some people who feel left out by the left by addressing their cultural fears on non-liberal grounds and promising economic salvation. The main point is a cold political calculation: to build a successful populist alliance against the liberal elite, you need to meet the needs of the largest, most politically active group of people right now, even if it makes cosmopolitan libs uncomfortable.

If "the medium is the message," then this piece says, "The pain of young white men is the best proof that capitalism has failed in every way: economically, culturally, and spiritually." It's not a right-wing problem. If we want to build a new, strong political coalition that goes beyond the dead left-right divide and gets rid of the crooked elite, we need to talk about it seriously and without liberal taboos.”

The play is about forming coalitions and making political triangulations. The medium gives it an ideological context that turns a complaint that could be seen as conservative into what can be called a “revolutionary critique.”

 

this is an excellent post and makes me feel better about starting this thread. 

Posted
20 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Ostensibly you've asked us to agree that this is happening and that a well intentioned policy is having negative consequences.

No, I've asked you to accept that members of a demographic cohort seems to *feel* that it has happened to them personally or recognize that it was happening around them. People on this thread keep talking about policy and DEI.  also wouldn't use the word policy to describe what I saw or what the essay is about. It seemed like more  of a social phenomena, and something distinct from DEI efforts in corporate America, such as they were. 

26 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Many posts have pointed out while we may understand why he feels that way, the objective facts simply don't support it.

So you get the reasons why, but those reasons don't exist. They are similar to Rats Of Unusual Size in this way.  Got it. 

28 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

This isn't me rejecting someone's "personal lived experience" as you want to say. Again, I empathize with the way they are feeling. But just because they feel that way doesn't make it true. Are there individual instances of unfair treatment at companies that had poorly implemented DEI policies? Sure, I believe there are. Is there widespread unfair discrimination against white, millennial men? No. That statistics don't support that.

The disconnect, in a nutshell. I can't do better than this. 

Posted (edited)
22 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

No, I've asked you to accept that members of a demographic cohort seems to *feel* that it has happened to them personally or recognize that it was happening around them. People on this thread keep talking about policy and DEI.  also wouldn't use the word policy to describe what I saw or what the essay is about. It seemed like more  of a social phenomena, and something distinct from DEI efforts in corporate America, such as they were. 

So you get the reasons why, but those reasons don't exist. They are similar to Rats Of Unusual Size in this way.  Got it. 

 

Again, what is an acceptable response in your view? Why is not ok to say "I understand how you feel, but let's address the real cause"?  Why are you being a petulant child when people refuse, without any evidence, to believe unfair discrimination is happening en masse? Your posts have a shitty tone and you're not explaining yourself well. It is tiresome. 

Edited by Dahobbs
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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Again, what is an acceptable response in your view? Why is not ok to say "I understand how you feel, but let's address the real cause"?

But that’s not really what you said, is it? 

Let’s try this another way:

You acknowledging that some significant number of millennial males  feel they *personally* were denied jobs and or promotional opportunities on the basis of their gender and/or race, correct? 
Why do they feel that way?

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
2 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

80% OF THE AMERICAN ADULT POPULATION IS GETTING SHAFTED.

We all agree on that already tho.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Good post, agree about all of this. But I am fascinated by the virality of it, because it has resonated with so many people. Some of that is because it’s been picked up and amplified by the right wing social media ecosystem, but initially it was apparently organic and I don’t think that happens unless people recognize their own lives in something. Even the whining, silly as it is, speaks to the despair some readers are feeling about their future. 
 

Which, again, is fertile ground. The nexus of limited opportunity and despair is supposed to be the progressive wheelhouse. But instead, we look at this one group and recoil. 

I do think it went viral because it resonated with people, but also because it's fairly well-written (not from an evidence-gathering standpoint; from a prose standpoint). It's like why JD Vance is effective. He makes shitty points sound polished. 

As for what to do about it? We're really in a pickle because the biggest problem, IMO, is not poor messaging/lack of messaging (although that's definitely a problem). It's that the people who need to see it will not see it because of the media environment and algorithms. An example: after Trump posted about the Reiners' death, I was curious as to whether or not that news had gotten around right-wing media. So far, I haven't been able to find an article on Fox News (the main site, not affiliates) mentioning Trump's post. Here's the article and headline I did find: GOP leaders call Reiner family slayings a 'tragedy' as director's son detained in homicide probe

Progressives have to be able to pierce the media bubble. Our current Boomer leadership isn't capable of this because they can't conceive of how to do it. I think it starts with podcasts and influencers, once we get people in charge who understand social media. Not to re-litigate this issue, but for example, Kamala should've gone on Joe Rogan - it probably wouldn't have won her the election, but it would've shown her trying to reach these guys where they're at. I will beat this drum till the day I die: it doesn't matter how great the messaging is if no one hears it.

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Posted

I didn’t read the article - because I don’t really care that much - but are these dudes actually complaining about not getting jobs in writer’s rooms? I used to do some screenwriting in a prior life, had some minor competitive success and never was able to make it on to a show. Do I get to write an essay about how life is unfair now? Grow up and go to law school like the rest of us.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

But that’s not really what you said, is it? 
 

Yes, it is. 

Quote

 

Let’s try this another way:

You acknowledging that some significant number of millennial males  feel they *personally* were denied jobs and or promotional opportunities on the basis of their gender and/or race, correct? 
Why do they feel that way?

 

I don't have any basis to know if the number is significant or not. As to why someone may misattribute the reason for their denied jobs or promotional opportunities, for all the usual reasons: people have poor innate understanding of statistics, it is easier to attribute cause to something external rather than internal, DEI policies (and the sentiments surrounding them) are in their face and thus easy targets for blame, people mistake lessened advantage with unfair disadvantage, etc. It is hard to talk in generalities because for any individual the reasoning may be different. And it is entirely possible that certain people faced actual discrimination. The issue is whether there is evidence that the discrimination is systemic, I don't see any evidence of that. 

But, rather than play sophomoric games, why you don't you just answer my question? What is the response you're looking for. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I’m talking about millennial males because that’s who the essay is about, and it’s who I saw this happening to at that time. I infer they are angry because men under 50 shifted from supporting both Clinton and  Biden by about 10 to a narrow Trump majority in 24.
I never said anything about them being racist, and as I made clear earlier I think this phenomenon was general to millennial men, but particularly the white ones. 

Men under 50 is a big group and includes a lot of people who are not millennials. There's a whole generation after millennials that is old enough to vote and the generation after that one is now entering voting age. And racial resentment is much more pronounced among white males in those generations than millennials. That's not because they've experienced discrimination. You're pretending you want to discuss this, but in repeatedly ignoring these facts it seems pretty clear you just want to lecture people for not catering to the feelings of anti-woke white boys enough.

Quote

But there’s a broader point here and it had a lot of do with my purpose in starting this thread. And I’m going to put it in all caps not to yell at you, but to catch the eye of people skimming a long post.

80% OF THE AMERICAN ADULT POPULATION IS GETTING SHAFTED. And on top of that, another 19% is mostly doing OK but only because they have been conscripted as Janissaries in service of the top 1%

Most progressives (who, not for nothing, live securely within that 19%) would read that paragraph and nod their head. But for some reason, progressives (broadly speaking) look at 28% of those people getting shafted and say, essentially, “fuck ‘em.”

No shit. Alleviating that is the entire point of liberal and progressive politics. There's no denial that a lot of white men are also shafted by the current system. There's just less sympathy for them than everyone else who is shafted by it even worse. I would still like the government to implement programs that would help them. That's the opposite of saying "fuck 'em."

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Posted
4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I would still like the government to implement programs that would help them. That's the opposite of saying "fuck 'em."

Literally all of my politics are for policies that would help them in fact.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

Again, what is an acceptable response in your view? Why is not ok to say "I understand how you feel, but let's address the real cause"?  Why are you being a petulant child when people refuse, without any evidence, to believe unfair discrimination is happening en masse? Your posts have a shitty tone and you're not explaining yourself well. It is tiresome. 

There's strong ana vibes from Bozo here. It's disappointing. 

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Posted
37 minutes ago, bonnieblue said:

I didn’t read the article - because I don’t really care that much - but are these dudes actually complaining about not getting jobs in writer’s rooms? I used to do some screenwriting in a prior life, had some minor competitive success and never was able to make it on to a show. Do I get to write an essay about how life is unfair now? Grow up and go to law school like the rest of us.

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

But that’s not really what you said, is it? 

Let’s try this another way:

You acknowledging that some significant number of millennial males  feel they *personally* were denied jobs and or promotional opportunities on the basis of their gender and/or race, correct? 
Why do they feel that way?

Because lots of people in media and likely in their own lives around them talk about how reverse discrimination happens all the time. This isn't fucking rocket science, man. Enough people repeat a lie often enough and a lot of people will start to believe it. Whether the 35 year old who didn't get promoted watches Hannity is irrelevant, this is a false idea that's been floating around since I was born and has been given a megaphone for the past 10 years.

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Posted
1 hour ago, G650 said:

We all agree on that already tho.

Right. It most of this thread is people who pretty clearly don’t care about +/- a quarter of them, or about half if the focus is limited to “the disadvantaged poor,” ie, people not like us. 

Posted
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Right. It most of this thread is people who pretty clearly don’t care about +/- a quarter of them, or about half if the focus is limited to “the disadvantaged poor,” ie, people not like us. 

I don't know what to tell you other than I disagree with that take, and you are being willfully ignorant to take that position. I haven't seen anyone in here go full Jordan fuck them kids regarding millennial white men. This all feels very personal to you.

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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Right. It most of this thread is people who pretty clearly don’t care about +/- a quarter of them, or about half if the focus is limited to “the disadvantaged poor,” ie, people not like us. 

What a bitchy and inaccurate generalization. Stop it. 

Edited by Dahobbs
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Posted
10 minutes ago, G650 said:

This all feels very personal to you

Well, I think we are fundamentally talking about how the progressive movement engages or not with the feelings of voters they lost.
I made clear upthread, as others have, that I saw it happening in real life from the other side of the desk for a decade. By definition, that’s anecdotal, but so is everything you have seen and experienced in your life. 

Posted (edited)

1. Start thread about an opinion piece that really resonated with you. 

2. Be condescending as fuck to anyone who pokes holes in some of the arguments or doesn't agree with the premise wholeheartedly.

3. ?????

4. Profit.

Edited by aggie08
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Posted
1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Well, I think we are fundamentally talking about how the progressive movement engages or not with the feelings of voters they lost.
I made clear upthread, as others have, that I saw it happening in real life from the other side of the desk for a decade. By definition, that’s anecdotal, but so is everything you have seen and experienced in your life. 

Stop acting like Ana and be specific. What do you think the progressive movement should do to appeal to them?

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Posted
Stop acting like Ana and be specific. What do you think the progressive movement should do to appeal to them?

Surrender its humanity, join the whiny white men in blaming minorities for everything wrong in this world down to the crabgrass in their lawns…profit.
Seriously. It’s all about indulging in grievance politics, which is a creature of “distract from actual systemic issues by focusing people’s ire on some ‘other’ so a corrupt oligarchy can continue to fuck everyone.”
By the way, I agree with playing that messaging game. Lie to them. Tell them the sweet excuses they want to hear: “it’s not your fault that your B- GPA-ass didn’t get a high-paying job. It’s because some black lesbian amputee stole the job that was rightly yours.” Promise that you’ll stop that from happening. Then, just deliver on sound economic policies. Break up some monopolies, protect unions, that sort of shit.
But this is America 2025. You won’t get a single vote from anyone until you tell them you hate/resent all the same people that they do.
Empathy? Empathy is for suckers. Lies and manipulation are where it’s at.
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Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Well, I think we are fundamentally talking about how the progressive movement engages or not with the feelings of voters they lost.
 

I mean, I'm all for it. I just don't think you are doing that here. Or more accurately I don't think you are persuading anyone to take a different tack in the service of that goal. Most people here are in agreement with your premise, yet you are just condescending them and that seems antithetical to your stated aim.

 

ETA See Briskets post above ^ for great strategy in pursuit of this end imo.

Edited by G650
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Posted
9 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Stop acting like Ana and be specific. What do you think the progressive movement should do to appeal to them?

I'm less concerned with the plight of unemployed white male screenwriters, but I do think there's an increasing gender imbalance amongst college graduates that seems impolite to bring up in progressive circles, and it's a good example of a general blind spot amongst progressives when it comes to issues that don't fit conveniently within their historical promotion of civil rights.  

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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

I'm less concerned with the plight of unemployed white male screenwriters, but I do think there's an increasing gender imbalance amongst college graduates that seems impolite to bring up in progressive circles, and it's a good example of a general blind spot amongst progressives when it comes to issues that don't fit conveniently within their historical promotion of civil rights.  

There is a growing gender imbalance. But I don't think it is because men are being unfairly denied admittance. I think they aren't applying. Also, there just are more women than men generally. We tend to forget that because for generations men have outnumbered women in higher education and the workplace. 

It is certainly something worth exploring, but doing so under the guise of giving credence to bullshit grievances isn't the way to do it. 

Edited by Dahobbs
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Posted
9 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

I'm less concerned with the plight of unemployed white male screenwriters, but I do think there's an increasing gender imbalance amongst college graduates that seems impolite to bring up in progressive circles, and it's a good example of a general blind spot amongst progressives when it comes to issues that don't fit conveniently within their historical promotion of civil rights.  

 

I think that is a common concern, but that is literally the opposite side of the coin of this conversation. It's the input, we are discussing the output. But I do think it's a serious conversation that need to be had to be sure.

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Posted
29 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Well, I think we are fundamentally talking about how the progressive movement engages or not with the feelings of voters they lost.
I made clear upthread, as others have, that I saw it happening in real life from the other side of the desk for a decade. By definition, that’s anecdotal, but so is everything you have seen and experienced in your life. 

You've made nothing clear. You've talked out of both sides of your mouth and generally been a dick. I don't think you know what you want. Again, what response do you think you're looking for? 

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Posted
22 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Stop acting like Ana and be specific. What do you think the progressive movement should do to appeal to them?

I think I have made very clear for several years that I feel very alienated from the progressive movement. There are many reasons, but they all revolve around the distance progressives put between themselves and the objects of their concern and the othering of the people who would benefit. 
If the progressive movement and democratic politics were still rooted in economic solidarity with the majority of the adult working population, they would work and speak in ways that finds common cause with any person getting shafted. But it doesn’t, so they don’t. This thread is replete with examples. 
 

9 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

I do think there's an increasing gender imbalance amongst college graduates that seems impolite to bring up in progressive circles, and it's a good example of a general blind spot amongst progressives when it comes to issues that don't fit conveniently within their historical promotion of civil rights.  

Indeed. Not just impolite, but impolite in way that is gross and déclassé because the focus should be on “helping others.”
 

It’s like the white liberal version of the “oh, you know the ones” meme. 
 

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

Because lots of people in media and likely in their own lives around them talk about how reverse discrimination happens all the time. This isn't fucking rocket science, man. Enough people repeat a lie often enough and a lot of people will start to believe it. Whether the 35 year old who didn't get promoted watches Hannity is irrelevant, this is a false idea that's been floating around since I was born and has been given a megaphone for the past 10 years.

That’s your answer to someone who says they personally were denied opportunity because of their gender or race? 
Wow. The gaslight is strong with this one. 

Posted

One thing I have to add, we are still way too fixated on sending everyone to college. In particular, narrow minded suburban whites have never fully broken away from that paradigm. It's still conceptualized in their minds as 'bettering' oneself, and until other career paths are given equal moral and societal value again it's going to be the source of pain and frustrated ambition.

 

I can tell you without any compunction that high level non college graduates in blue collar fields are smarter, more capable, and stronger people than the average mediocre suburbanite who gets a computer science degree and goes into "tech".

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Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

It is certainly something worth exploring, but doing so under the guise of giving credence to bullshit grievances

 But you’re begging the question when you call it bullshit

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
1 minute ago, G650 said:

One thing I have to add, we are still way too fixated on sending everyone to college. In particular, narrow minded suburban whites have never fully broken away from that paradigm. It's still conceptualized in their minds as 'bettering' oneself, and until other career paths are given equal moral and societal value again it's going to be the source of pain and frustrated ambition.

 

Amen to that.

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Posted
33 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

By the way, I agree with playing that messaging game. Lie to them. Tell them the sweet excuses they want to hear: “it’s not your fault that your B- GPA-ass didn’t get a high-paying job. It’s because some black lesbian amputee stole the job that was rightly yours.”

But again, how do you respond to people who weren’t lied to, but were in fact actually excluded from consideration for jobs or promotions on the sole basis  of their race or gender? 
Multiple people on this thread, including me, have said they saw this happening.
 

Are you promising that’s some kind of shared delusion? 

Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

There is a growing gender imbalance. But I don't think it is because men are being unfairly denied admittance. I think they aren't applying.

That’s probably true and I think college admissions is its own ball of wax, but it is disappointing to see that race/gender based affirmative action seems to have offered such limited benefit to would-be first generation college students and to lower-middle/working-class families, which is who progressives should be working for. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

But again, how do you respond to people who weren’t lied to, but were in fact actually excluded from consideration for jobs or promotions on the sole basis  of their race or gender? 
Multiple people on this thread, including me, have said they saw this happening.
 

Are you promising that’s some kind of shared delusion? 

See, here is the issue. You have Mole with an anecdotal story that happened to him, which contained mild inconvenience and a generally happy ending. And yet you respond with a YouTube click bait title. There's no real discussion to be had here. 

4 hours ago, Mole said:

I too haven’t yet read the article due to Christmas chaos, but I will eventually. Some uninformed thoughts:

I’m a late genX college professor who got into higher education a bit later than most, so my professor job search and doctoral experience was firmly millennial.

1. Early 2010s at a world-famous doctoral program, one of our professors gave a few lectures about how to get a professor gig. He repeatedly made a point that if you’re part some underrepresented group, make sure to communicate that in your application materials. He cynically said to just send a picture along but made no mention of how to pick the right tree for the picture. At least in his view, it mattered.

2. It took me a few years to find a professor gig. A big part of the problem was the lack of assistant professor openings due to fallout from 2008 and the huge reliance on adjuncts. At the same time, the jobs that were filled were filled by people with objectively weaker CVs. I couldn’t even get an interview.
 

Now a decadish into the professor game I’ll still say, I was better on paper than many of the people getting hired for these jobs. Having served on hiring committees, they simply weren’t better candidates. Maybe there are other reasons, existing relationships for example, but the experience was frustrating and felt unfair. I didn’t turn my angst into a fandom of racist podcasters or whatever kids these days are listening to, but it could’ve happened if not for NPR putting out old episodes of Car Talk.
 

My current gig is a better fit for me and everything worked out for the best, but those years were frustrating.

 

 

4 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Prepare to have your personal lived experience DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC

People get unfairly denied employment allllll the time. Minorities still get that treatment by a factor of a bazillion to one to white dudes. Nobody is saying it's good or should ever happen, but plenty, myself included don't think this explains Trumpism, because it's just not statistically relevant in the big picture. Especially for millennials, who remember, are still the most liberal group! There's a lot more motherfuckers working at McDonald's or as a framer than ever went looking for a tech or academia career.

 

I mean at the end of that day, I agree with you with a lot of blanket progressive-ism and it's faults. But I see no one in here who would tell someone of any race or creed that got denied a job unfairly to get fucked.  

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

But again, how do you respond to people who weren’t lied to, but were in fact actually excluded from consideration for jobs or promotions on the sole basis  of their race or gender? 
Multiple people on this thread, including me, have said they saw this happening.
 

Are you promising that’s some kind of shared delusion? 

Bozo, we can't respond to your particular experience.  You've provided no detail. I don't know you. I don't have any reason to believe you or not believe you. I don't have any reason to know whether you have the evidence available to actually reach your conclusion. Again, if you want us to accept an assertion, you'll have to provide evidence. That's how it works. You don't get to just say things and have everyone believe you. You've made a claim, now support it. 

Again, if someone was treated unfairly, that is wrong and should be addressed. If a particular company's hiring practices are discriminatory, that should be fixed. But you seem to want us to jump from your individual anecdote to this being something that is systemic and prevalent. Again, the available evidence does not support that conclusion. 

Posted
37 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Bozo, we can't respond to your particular experience.  You've provided no detail. I don't know you. I don't have any reason to believe you or not believe you. I don't have any reason to know whether you have the evidence available to actually reach your conclusion. Again, if you want us to accept an assertion, you'll have to provide evidence. That's how it works. You don't get to just say things and have everyone believe you. You've made a claim, now support it.

I didn’t provide examples because it didn’t seem productive. My experiences were aligned to what 956 described in the first page.

I don’t want to discuss either my role or previous employers for obvious reasons. I could describe the broad outlines of some things I saw, but I have to say I’m not sure what that would accomplish. You’d still be taking my word for it. 
Still want a couple of examples?

Posted
4 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

No, I've asked you to accept that members of a demographic cohort seems to *feel* that it has happened to them personally or recognize that it was happening around them. People on this thread keep talking about policy and DEI.  also wouldn't use the word policy to describe what I saw or what the essay is about. It seemed like more  of a social phenomena, and something distinct from DEI efforts in corporate America, such as they were. 

So you get the reasons why, but those reasons don't exist. They are similar to Rats Of Unusual Size in this way.  Got it. 

The disconnect, in a nutshell. I can't do better than this. 

I’ve stated several times I agree they feel this way.  I’ve also started the article ascribes the cause of the experience that led to the feeling to one thing, DEI policies, while ignoring other factors like 66% of new communications grads being women and complaining that the hiring mirrored the grad rates and that white men weren’t hired >50%.  That’s a huge disconnect from reality.  

I also stated that white men in tech really had it worse but more due to H1B than to DEI.

So the solutions don’t just lie in killing/reforming DEI but in several other things that would actually address the problem like a bigger tax on H1B and outsourcing. Programs that help people successfully complete degree programs and skills training for the information economy, etc. 

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Posted

Apparently I'm the only white millennial male on this website so I guess I'll give a bit of my perspective. 

My experience is in commercial construction in a non-racially diverse area. The company I worked for was all genx upper leadership, vast majority millennial labor (both white and blue collar), and a handful of boomer mercs doing sales/bus development while waiting for retirement. Sidenote, I never saw a non-boomer in any sales or business development role, kind of odd. 

As a regional subcontractor/supplier I was able to work closely with companies from under 10 employees to those with a national/global presence. We were always looking for people on the blue collar side so basically if you could pass the welding test or whatever equivalent you were hired. There didn't appear to be any favoritism or discrimination with women.

White collar is a bit different. My observation throughout the industry was certainly that being a woman added a bonus positive quality to career progression. This doesn't mean incompetent women were being hired or promoted, just that unspoken value discussed all over this thread of "all things being equal, we'll go with the woman". 

This never made me angry or anything, I just looked at it similar to how fat and ugly people are disadvantaged, or in my case how a "shy" quiet guy who is very uncomfortable with small talk will top out at a level before someone comfortable with talking to clients. Construction is still male dominated and I didn't mind the efforts equalize things. 

That's all, merry Christmas. 

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Posted
10 minutes ago, seven said:

Apparently I'm the only white millennial male on this website so I guess I'll give a bit of my perspective. 

 

I think it's you and Derka, so you are in hallowed company.

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Posted (edited)
35 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

I also stated that white men in tech really had it worse but more due to H1B than to DEI.

Strange to say, I never saw any of that. In the view from my seat H1B visas were used to supplement the workforce where skilled labor and qualified labor was too scarce to fully meet our needs. In my experience the people who resent H1B visas think the demand should be met by upskilling or training of domestic workers. That’s a valid POV, but not what we’re talking about here and any rate nobody who was in the mix lost out. We needed qualified hands and H1Bs delivered them. 
“DEI” has become such a loaded, catch-all term that I’m not sure what you would be referring to above, other than to say that I don’t think the exclusion of millennial males from jobs or promotional opportunities (at least that I saw) was part of any program, as it were, DEI or otherwise. It was more of an emergent consensus. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted (edited)
50 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I didn’t provide examples because it didn’t seem productive. My experiences were aligned to what 956 described in the first page.

I don’t want to discuss either my role or previous employers for obvious reasons. I could describe the broad outlines of some things I saw, but I have to say I’m not sure what that would accomplish. You’d still be taking my word for it. 
Still want a couple of examples?

Do you think being condescending to everyone is productive? Again, what response are you wanting here? I have said if individual events occurred, that was wrong and should be addressed. What more are you wanting me to say? What is going to satisfy you that I care enough?  I just don't think there is evidence that your individual experiences can be generalized more broadly. Maybe you suck. Maybe your company sucks. I don't know. But I'm not going to assume there is some broad discrimination against white males without some sort of statistical evidence to back it up. 

Edited by Dahobbs
Posted
3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Do you think being condescending to everyone is productive? Again, what response are you wanting here? I have said if individual events occurred, that was wrong and should be addressed. What more are you wanting me to say? What is going to satisfy you that I care enough?  I just don't think there is evidence that your individual experiences can be generalized more broadly. Maybe you suck. Maybe your company sucks. I don't know. But I'm not going to assume there is some broad discrimination against white males without some sort of statistical evidence to back it up. 

No that’s a no?



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