> What's surprising is there is no visible response to neutralise that dogma.
Perhaps because your exceedingly-vague conspiracy theory is full of holes? For example:
1. Which foreign governments are you accusing? Do you even know, or are you just assuming somebody must be doing the thing?
2. Exactly what mechanism of foreign "grants" is being used to force the hiring of certain staff or educators, and where are they being hired?
3. What makes those individuals "demoralizing" actors, and why do you believe they have a significant effect on "young men"?
4. On what grounds can it be anything but noise, a tiny droplet in the heaving cultural ocean that is "current gender roles and expectations"?
_____
Truly nefarious foes would probably have much better results (for less money) just pumping out catchy songs with demoralizing subtext and hoping one gets popular. Heck, maybe they even spread a dogma of powerlessness by funding US Christian Radio stations, constantly telling people they are nothing without Jesus.
Hold up, there's a HUGE difference between these two:
A: "Most people consider it an objective fact that Russia is a current geopolitical enemy to the US, it does some wacky shit, therefore if a foreign government is committing shenanigans there's a chance it's Russia."
B: "Most people consider it an objective fact that Russia has been somehow giving educational grants to US institutions with the explicit goal of installing a fifth-column of educators who will demoralize young US men with misandry."
Believing A does not imply B.
The parent-poster isn't being vague because the answer is obvious-and-accepted... they're being vague because they want to push the "foreign enemies in our colleges" meme without giving the audience any handles for critical-thinking.
> A: "Most people consider it an objective fact that Russia is a current geopolitical enemy to the US, it does some wacky shit, therefore if a foreign government is committing shenanigans there's a chance it's Russia."
And that chance is: "probably", where "probably" means it is "basically" a fact. (Specific example: the same historic evidence of Russian trolls/hackers is regularly re-used as proof of new accusations, if any evidence is even provided that is.)
And any challenge to the claim? "Pedantic." (or: silence, highly predictable memes, insults, deflection, etc - ChatGPT would know better than me)
> Believing A does not imply B.
There are (at least) two kinds of imply (and "does not" for that matter):
- the correct, literal, logically perfect interpretation (typically (depends on the claim, of course) "pedantic" and not allowed)
- the colloquial/experiential interpretation (the right way to interpret it, that is probably correct)
> The parent-poster isn't being vague because the answer is obvious-and-accepted... they're being vague because they want to push the "foreign enemies in our colleges" meme without giving the audience any handles for critical-thinking.
What version of "is/isn't" is being used here: literal, or colloquial? :)
That's a shallow understanding of my message. I said that it's the dogma that corrupts minds and makes otherwise reasonable people do wicked things. Who created the dogma is a secondary question, for the US has plenty of enemies. In the near future we'll see how dogmas will become more elaborate, more oppressive, and it's the war of dogmas that will be central to future wars.
Interestingly, this is a plot point in a very popular Chinese-language sci-fi novel called Death’s End. Humanity is deliberately nudged to take on more feminine qualities to make them a less effective fighting force against a colonizing species.
The author had to run his book by the CCP - you get the sense this hints at an accepted strategy in the Chinese mainland. It’s an interesting read.
> Its use was banned in the European Union in 2004
If so this should be something that's possible to control for in studies. I can't find a lot of data from Europe newer than about that date, even suitable for casual discussion.
The trilogy talks about human society ebbing and flowing between "tough" and "sensitive" over the generations. Mostly, the Trisolarans rely on the Sophon lock. With superior technology, the masculinity of your prey is totally irrelevant. And, in Death's End, everyone's in an Australian penal colony anyway.
Aside from all the other problems with this that others have pointed out, the most obvious hyper-masculine adversary you might be referencing is currently proving to be embarrassingly inept at actual war. I would have expected western (particularly US) culture conservatives to stop complaining about the masculinity of our armed forces compared to our rivals once one of the rivals in question showed all the performative macho bullshit in the world doesn't make you actually good at fighting.
For some reason there's a comparison that comes to mind regarding Roman Legions fighting Germanic Barbarians. I don't know how true it is or if it's really all that provable anyway, but I remember learning that the Romans were quite effective because of their teamwork and discipline and the tools that they were able to use effectively because of that. While the barbarians liked swinging large swords and individual glory, the Romans had short gladiuses and long shields. They'd form a wall and just slowly advance while stabbing enemies in the guts.
In good faith, can you respond to Terr_'s comment above then?
1. Who is doing the funding?
2. How are they doing the funding?
3. What message are they spreading, and what proof do you have the message has an effect?
Calling it a conspiracy theory does not mean it is instantly wrong, but it is a correct label - the accusation is hidden (or perhaps not, apparently it's obvious) wealthy foreign funders controlling American society. If that doesn't look like a conspiracy theory (which again, does not mean it's wrong immediately!), then I don't know what you expect.
Yuri Besmenov. I think he was being truthful in his descriptions all those years back, seems like it came to fruition quite nicely. I would have loved to have seen more interviews with him, say, each decade, and see how the climate at the time was filtered through his lense.
> By offering its education institutions large grants if they agree to hire the right ideologists.
Are you referring to the "Thousand Currents" program? Now referred to as United Front Work Program?
This is some next-level orientalism right here. On the assumption you're talking about China or Russia—neither regime is even close to "ancient". Neither has any meaningful organizational continuity going back further than their 20th-century revolutions.
I think he's thinking something else. Ancient enemies planning things that we can't even comprehend in a human lifespan. So some sort of conspiracy involving aliens, demons, Cthulhu, or something else.
Well if you look at China, being that you can change the policy but not the party, they plan for 50 years in the future. Where as the democratic nations can be hamstrung planning for 4 years at a time, with 2 years spent planning how to win the next election.
The USA is just lucky it has a deep state or special interest groups that continues pushing things ahead regardless of who is in in power. Sadly its mostly driven by corporate greed, it just happens to align with furthering US state power. You can see things like the Qatar-Turkey pipeline and Iraq war breaks out of the 4 year cycle cos they are good money makers.
> Well if you look at China, being that you can change the policy but not the party, they plan for 50 years in the future.
This is the theory behind authoritarian regimes, but it doesn't actually play out that way. There's too much internal politicking in order to keep power concentrated, so you end up with a state that on paper should be able to execute faster and more coherently than a democratic state, but in practice is so hobbled by the internal conflicts and power games that it doesn't actually have all that much extra energy to solve real problems. An authoritarian regime's primary concern is maintaining its authority, everything else is secondary.
China grew rapidly as it industrialized not because of any strength in the communist regime, but because that's what happens when you have a lot of babies who suddenly stop dying—your working-age population explodes and your economy booms. Then China established the one child policy to try to cap the growth and prevent famine, took too long to repeal it and failed just to change the culture back toward large families, so now they're facing demographic collapse. Some 50-year plan that turned out to be.
