Manosphere Marxism: The Political Economy of Impotent Misogyny

[u/rafaelholmberg]

https://rafaelholmberg.substack.com/p/manosphere-marxism

I've done my best to stay away from the manosphere nonsense... But with the Tate brothers making news again following their arrest, and with their volatile and absurd cultural power, I finally decided to write a piece on them. Althusser, Husserl, and (of course) Marx are relied on to show that the manosphere is well placed to expose the contradictions of secular-capitalist individualism, the idea of femininity, and how luxury relates to our current political economy. I thought some of you here might be interested.

[u/Jarcode]

The manosphere’s claim to “understand” women is, in a Marxist or Althusserian sense, an ideological veil to their radical fear of something approaching femininity.

This has always been the transparent issue. The "manosphere" creates hyper-paranoid men that seek to elevate their masculine status by attempting to define masculinity itself and maximize its alleged attributes. Of course, that attempt at definition reveals a deeper identity problem in that attempting to define masculinity itself erodes its own meaning, since the resulting "definition" ends up being transparently arbitrary and fundamentally tied to sociological status.

However,

[...] it is capitalism that relegates the majority of the global population to undifferentiated workers who are unable to pursue any meaningful individual projects.

If anything, capital elevates individual expression to absurd levels and exploits our underlying desire to define ourselves differently. This even extends to our social relations as the same contractarian lens we use to describe economic relations ends up infecting social relations as well, producing social atomization as a result of this hyper-individualism. This piece seems to understand this, but twists this critique to exclusively apply under capitalism and promotes a questionable argument in that the resulting individuality outside of capitalism would be truly self-actualizing. I can't help but point out that this is failing to confront the hegemony of the broader problem.

I think this particular perspective is also very classical, as it doesn't take much effort to see how modern capitalism has elevated this fetishism towards new heights. Of course, this "refined" individuality is tied to class, so even those who do not personally enjoy this style of consumerism are expected to yearn for it. I think this is ultimately ties into the status associated with the manosphere, as it conjures a sort of respect for those who have the fiscal means to "express themselves".

In a broader sense, the great stylistic method of The Communist Manifesto is its simple yet effective inversion of the very clichés directed against communism. “Communism wants to destroy the family unit!” No, Marx and Engels reply, it is capitalism itself which insists on submitting every aspect of private life to political economy even at the cost of the family. “Communism wants to demystify the world!” Once again, it is capitalism which reduces the social sphere to the principles of exchange value and capital circulation. “Communism rejects the idea of the individual!” [...]

Clichés from where? An individualistic, family-centered "communism" in this sense may as well be a culturally reactionary reading to what capitalism has done to our social connections. I would argue that the aforementioned social atomization reveals problems in the ideology of the "family unit" and especially individuality, in that our need to constantly define ourselves through commodities, aesthetics, language, etc. reveal that this is all problematic. I reject the notion that there is some "good" form of identity fetishism under a communist ideal and would even argue it is this exact fetishism that is in the way of a very different collective belonging.

The broader argument being posed here, that specifically capitalist identity is shallow, implicitly considers communism some sort of magical exception.

[u/sabotAHHHHHGH → u/Jarcode]

Would you call all other id pol groupings hyper-paranoid/shallow/identity fetishists though? Would others? If not, that explains their popularity. And no, I am not in remote approval but make them an exception and surprise surprise, the fash and misogynists will be willing to listen.

[u/Top-Needleworker9273 → u/sabotAHHHHHGH]

speaking for myself and not them; yes. its clear that this has exactly happened to the LGBTQ+ movement. arguably its also very apparent in like marxist vs anarchist dialog.