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Crises of modern Western life

16:25 / 31.08.02

Now admittedly that's probably the most pretentious title that this part of the site has seen in a hell of a long time, but I really want to open up a concept that I'm interested in at the moment - which is that from where I'm standing it looks like the two fundamental crises of self that are going on in the Western world at the moment - particularly in Britain - are crises of masculinity and crises of nationality. Both are fundamentally linked in some profound ways that I'm not sure I'm able to articulate - but are to do with ways of deriving pride or self-respect from some aspect of self-definition. I was wondering if anyone felt they could extend some of this thinking in a useful direction - suggest some linkages, some failures in my thinking or perhaps some other crises that my subservience to colonial middle-class hetero-patriarchal values may have forced me to put under some kind of erasure...

16:28 / 31.08.02

Rereading that post, it seems more flippant than I initially intended and much less worked through than I intended...

21:49 / 31.08.02

I think the problem is that humans need a sense of belonging to something larger, but we can't really justify it. Nationalism makes no sense, because we there isn't any moral difference between an Briton and a non-Briton; masculinity doesn't make sense because there isn't any moral difference between a male and a female. These tendencies do not spring from philosophy. They come from our very nature.

If you're home, this link might be worth checking out. It's an audio file, and this computer has no sound, so I hope I got the link right.

Host Steve Inskeep talks with Paul Connolly of the University of Ulster about a study of childhood attitudes. Research concludes that children pick up cues to prejudice almost as soon as they can talk.

Tryphena Absent

23:31 / 31.08.02

Britain is a very masculine country, by this I mean that it is perceived as aggressive by the rest of the world, perhaps this is why a crisis concerning masculinity should also evolve in to one of nationality?

10:45 / 01.09.02

Is that true? I'm surprised by this image of Britain as masculine. I normally assume that it's considered an effeminate fop of a country. Am I only speaking of England here? I assume America has no crisis of nationality, but I'd be surprised if Britain was the only place that did...

17:21 / 01.09.02

I don't think Britain is alone in that. Canada has a similar situation in that it's identity is hardly autonomous and, as a result, lacks any definition. We share an enormous border with the US, which provides American culture with a significant Welcome mat. A large section of our population supports the idea that we should actually join the states and adopt their methods and motivations.
On the other hand, we have the history, albeit a short one, of a colony of the mighty "UK".
Then add 1 part French (or French-Canadian depending on your political stand) to 2 parts Native, and mix it all together with sprinkles of dozens of other cultures. Bake it for a hundred years or so in heated violence and cultural clashes and what do you get?
A completely undefined mass of godknowswhat.
A population with minimal sense of community or harmony. Throw masculinity into it and the and the whole thing grows exponentially.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

17:45 / 01.09.02

I've a lot to say and I'm going to think it through, but I think the US is almost in a permanent state of identity crisis, perhaps intentionally and inevitably so. It's a nation spoken into existence, its cultural self re-formulates itself and reinterprets itself to each successive generation. America's internal ideals are in constant tension; its ethnic makeup is a soup ready to boil over; the governmental structure is deliberately structured in checks and balances; this is a secular state with strong religious convictions and iconogrpahy; a nation with dreams of excess, a puritan background, and massive poverty; a classless society with racial and social divisions; a free nation with an authoritarian tendency; a technological state with a pastoral and agrarian dream, and so on.

And yes, absolutely, the American Male is also in a state of crisis.

I think this is even broader than you think it is. More to follow.

20:23 / 01.09.02

i wouldn't say there is a crisis but a challenge against masculinity and nationality. which, personally, i think is posative. these 'identities' should be challenged. i believe they are unreliable and useless.

21:31 / 01.09.02

SMS--I think the problem is that humans need a sense of belonging to something larger, but we can't really justify it.

In regards to crises of self and notions of self-definition, this is a very interesting statement. Boundaries. Why do we impose such limitations on ourselves? We desire this sense of belonging, but ignore the fact that indeed we are connected to everything. We could not belong to anything larger; that is, we are all infinitely interconnected, and yet it seems that this knowledge is too overwhelming. We don’t know how to function in such a reality. Instead we choose to create boundaries, lines which we play with, pushing back and forth until we find a comfort level. But, as with the crisis of nationalism and masculinity, the boundaries inevitably no longer seem to apply. And rightly so. They were artificial, irrational constructions to begin with. So, I wonder, why is it that when faced with the beauty of belonging—belonging which entails an intimate connection with the whole—do we sink back inside ourselves, retreating from the vastness into well delineated spaces?

Tryphena Absent

22:23 / 01.09.02

Varis, I'd disagree with you, while there probably is a challenge to masculinity posed by feminism and also a separate challenge to nationality posed by globalisation together the two have led to an idenitity crisis. There's a massive lack of definition surrounding both these things, what is masculinity and how can it exist in a world where men are equal to women? What is our national identity, particularly the English national identity? Always so tied up in men and empire and public houses and pipes etc.

Foust is SO authentic

00:39 / 02.09.02

I think the problem is that humans need a sense of belonging to something larger, but we can't really justify it.

Do we have to justify it? Perhaps there are some portions of our personal philosophys that are so academic that they require no intellectual foundation. It's only when these ideas compel action that they must be examined. Barring immoral action, what's wrong with having a few comfort blankets?

One of the most striking cultural phenomena of the last decade here in Canada was the "Joe's Rant" beer commercial. I don't know how many of you non-Canadians have seen it; basically it was a guy listing off all the great things about Canada, ending with the mantra "I AM CANADIAN!"

It took off. Canadians seemed content to take their national identify from a beer commercial, of all things. *sigh*

Disco is My Class War

06:07 / 02.09.02

Nick's right, nationalism and masculinity are in crisis everywhere. It's certainly not just Britain. ('Nationalism', rather than 'nationality', seems to be the word that describes best what you're talking about, Tom -- yes? no?) And there are different levels of crisis -- economic crises as well as crises of individual 'identity'. Right? So it seems more important to me to figure out what the crisis is producing -- especially with regard to nationalism. Ie it's not a moment of crisis which will necessarily result in the dissolution of masculinism or nationalism, but is spurring governments and right-wing thinktanks everywhere to reinforce citizenship, nationality, discrete identity categories through law and heavier policing and surveillance and racial profiling and all kinds of things.

Which makes me suspect that actually the 'crisis' is somewhat manufactured. Or at least, I'd like to explore the ramifications of that possibility.

Tryphena Absent

13:47 / 02.09.02

The other side of the crisis though is that the left wing has become centred globally rather than locally. There is little opposition within indvidual countries but thousands come out to protest at the global summit, this seems to hint both problem and solution but how... I couldn't say.

14:28 / 02.09.02

National identity is always in crisis because it's a highly artificial construct.

"Masculinity" would seem to mean a lot of things. Do you mean expectations of gender? Behaviors associated with gender? Behaviors inherent in a particular sex?

04:34 / 03.09.02

In Australia there seems to movement to define what it is to be "Australian" and at the same time - obviously - a kind of push of national idea(l)s from various factions.

Anecdotal but relevant: In September 2000, Melbourne hosted the WTO forum. The setting was a huge casino/hotel complex and around 10,000 protesters turned out for the blockade. This was the largest protest for decades and as such the first for many people, more importantly also the first time a lot of people could see not only the state's, but also the popular reaction to such a protest.

After the first day the Premier appeared stating that the actions of the people protesting were "un-Australian". I think this was a real turning point. There were a lot of people I spoke to - then and now - who were assaulted by police for standing up for their beliefs, they couldn't see anything "Australian" about that.

The federal governments actions since then, specifically the response to 9/11 as an electoral platform and what has become known as the "refugee crisis", coupled with constant rhetoric about "all good Australians" has caused a lot of debate about the meaning of "Australian".

Summed up: You called me "un-Australian" back then, surely you don't expect me to agree with you now?

10:29 / 04.09.02

I think the 'crisis' of masculinity and nationality may be related to how these notions are (at least to some degree) conditioned to geographical and bodily boundaries that are no longer as clear as they were when they were constructed. The problem of national identity is probably starker for us in "post-colonial" countries - I grew up listening to american and european music, watching american and japanese cartoons and tv series, and absorbing mostly foreign values, while my contact with the culture and folklore of my own country was rather limited and, to this day, I approach it as something greatly exotic. It appears to me that the middle and high classes of Brazil - and that's likely the rule for most of the West - inhabit or are moving towards inhabiting a transnational cultural environment that undermines our old concepts of national identity, that depends on the difficulties of people of different nationalities to communicate. You can blame globalization, telecommunications etc. Of course, replacing nationality with spontaneous (?) cultural identification independent of geographical boundaries is positive, but I wonder what the social effects of being culturally set apart of the rest of the population will be - the miserable and poor who are cast aside of the "electronic revolution", which here means most people.

11:44 / 04.09.02

Taking my cue from Mr. Marx, I'd suggest that one of the root causes of the crisis(es) of masculinity is that ol' economy; with unemployment steadily on the rise, skills sets constantly shifting in value, and economic roles becoming more unstable (man as provider, woman as nurturer), our ideas of self become inevitably fluid.

13:16 / 04.09.02

Not that that's anything new; from Tristan Tzara's 1918 Dadaist Disgust:

"Morality is an injection of chocolate into the arms of men... Every product of disgust capable of becoming a negation of the family is dada."