The Sin of Words, Part 4
After Donald Trump has won in the US president election some of the Democrat-supporting people came back to the topic of "toxic masculinity" because in the eyes of them lots it's "white male" that voted Trump into presidency and the reason (that they believed) behind "white male becoming more right-wing" is that they (the left) never had something that can be said as "non-toxic masculinity" so that "white male" got taken by "the far-right propaganda of the christofascists".
But let's put all of that aside since I'm not here to talk about anything other than the phrase "toxic masculinity", especially used under this particular context. We can (and for the sake of our goal of revealing the sin of words, must) make at least three observations with just the words alone: (1) that it implies the existence of a "non-toxic" (whatever that means) version of masculinity; (2) that the word "toxic" is a popular psychology that's never well-defined; and (3) that it could also be used in the way where "masculinity" as a whole is considered (or even claimed) as toxic while having a back-out plan of "not all masculinity is toxic and I didn't mean all masculinity". An important conclusion that can be drawn from here, is that if (3) is true during an argument, then arguing about the definition of "masculinity" and what constitutes "non-toxic masculinity" will only be fruitless and thsu meaningless, since the opponent, with the basis from which all their argument come forth being the faith that all masculinity is "toxic", is obviously not willing to give in; another important conclusion that can be drawn from here, is that the word "toxic", due to it being not well-defined but firmly associated with the status of low moral, it becomes at best a completely hollow accusation and at worst a deliberate tool of control.
Last update: 2024.11.8