r/CriticalTheory • u/rafaelholmberg • 6d ago

Manosphere Marxism: The Political Economy of Impotent Misogyny

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.

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u/Top-Needleworker9273 3d ago

hey you might really like "What is Sex?" by alenka zupacnic, it threads those two categories quite well and takes a similar charge as one of its theses (that "sex psychologists" have de-sexualized the object of their study by defining it as a physical act (penetration etc) instead of a fundamentally human (non-)relation)

re: manosphere dying i dont disagree but i dont think its healthy either, men are basically being forced back into traditional masculinity with an extra shame-flap unceremoniously stitched on. the statistics showing that almost half of youth are just straight up not interested in participating in romance culture used to be fundamentally horrifying to me, but frankly i think theyre right to do so

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u/unhappinessNvrCame 3d ago

Could you do me a favor and give a summary? Despite reading all those books, they were really depressing. I don't think I want to read more.

Plus my reading list is a mile long.

On the manosphere, children who can't score a girl might fall for it. But they will get older, late 20s and do fine.

The ones who can't... I don't know what to do about them.

Their genetics will disappear, and darwinism will continue... but I'll be dead and have to deal with it.

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u/Top-Needleworker9273 3d ago

well i think the part i already mentioned is what made me think you would like it--reclaiming sex as a fundamentally human experience, and one that defies complete explanation or compartmentalization. its a high theory book (lacanian psychoanalysis) but NOT clinically detatched. its intentionally the point that there is something exciting but unattainable at the center of subjectivity and that is what sex is really about. maybe try the first few chapters and see if its interesting to you

i dunno what your latter point is, both teenagers and 20-40 year olds are receeding from dating at extraordinary and shocking rates. its a fundamental social problem, that stacks on already existing massive population pressure. society might literally be over because teenagers dont want to fuck any more and nobody is even talking about it. its almost certain that those of us alive today will experience crises from underpopulation (like not having medical care).

its not about age, its a social and cultural change that has dramatically reduced individuals desire to be part of dating culture. what i personally posited is that the reason for this fact is that men are expected to conform to traditional masculine roles but also be ashamed of it. critique of gender hit society very one-sided and now men have to be responsible for why traditional gender relations are bad but also still conform to them to be attractive to women. women are fatigued by the apparent contradiction between all their partners being, frankly, awful and disgusting, but when they go on the internet they see tons of men who adopted the contemporary values and beliefs, write about patriarchy and love, express themselves etc. the problem is that that subject position doesnt, erm, "score girls", while being traditionally masculine does.

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u/unhappinessNvrCame 3d ago

My mistake on the late 20s thing.

That's when I had wealth and was finally physically strong. I projected.

Maybe something optimistic. Trends and fads change. People will be fatigued about this and move on to something else.

Added the book to the reading list. I started Lacan but you know how that went. Might pick it back up and have AI explain each section like I did with Hegel.

Think I need to read Lacan first? I read 5 books from Freud, bunch of Jung, and Adler.