My Cousin Was My Hero. Until the Day He Tried to Kill Me.
May 9, 2019 2:54 PM Subscribe
A man grapples with his own indoctrination in toxic masculinity After a terrible attack by a family member, NYT writer Wil S. Hylton takes stock of what being a man has meant to him, his family and what it could mean to his children. Trigger warning - violence
I read this earlier today and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The cousin sounds like a serious bully nut job narcissist and I don't know that I would blame that on Toxic Masculinity as a cultural construct as much as I would suspect a personality disorder or some kind of hormonal problem as being the cause of his behavior, the proximate cause seemed to be a bit psychotic what with the hearing of voices and paranoia. Maybe that just illustrates the crazy in the more demonstrative forms of masculine peacockery though.
I think that the writer falls into the trap that runs along the lines of "he's a bastard but he is my bastard." I don't think this is unusual or the product of a lack of moral rigor or something, god knows I have known enough people of various genders that fall for the violent type, I do think that the shock of having your pet cassowary turn on you,("I thought we had a bond,") is a pretty harsh epiphany to go through.
posted by Pembquist at 4:25 PM on May 9, 2019 [51 favorites]
I think that the writer falls into the trap that runs along the lines of "he's a bastard but he is my bastard." I don't think this is unusual or the product of a lack of moral rigor or something, god knows I have known enough people of various genders that fall for the violent type, I do think that the shock of having your pet cassowary turn on you,("I thought we had a bond,") is a pretty harsh epiphany to go through.
posted by Pembquist at 4:25 PM on May 9, 2019 [51 favorites]
his military training at work
I feel like there's some lede burying here of it being a veteran snapping vs just, a cousin he's known forever.
Like that's a pretty major element at work here
posted by emptythought at 4:43 PM on May 9, 2019 [22 favorites]
I feel like there's some lede burying here of it being a veteran snapping vs just, a cousin he's known forever.
Like that's a pretty major element at work here
posted by emptythought at 4:43 PM on May 9, 2019 [22 favorites]
Same. I didn't know what to make of it because untreated mental illness was overwhelmingly emanating from it and not necessarily toxic masculinity.
By the end of it, I really wanted the wife's story.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:44 PM on May 9, 2019 [73 favorites]
By the end of it, I really wanted the wife's story.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:44 PM on May 9, 2019 [73 favorites]
There were two bridges too far in his relationship with his cousin. When he pulled the gun on that boy and told him to break up with the girl the author liked. The other when he beat up a girl. Frankly the cousin was just a bad guy. Probably his cousin has done worse than we saw in this story. I’m glad the author woke up to the fact he was in really bad company. Too bad it took a damn near deadly beat -down.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 5:02 PM on May 9, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 5:02 PM on May 9, 2019 [15 favorites]
Fortunately there are some cishet dudes whose parents were not abusive and taught them to roll their eyes at the whole idea of worshiping strength for its own sake. Toxic masculinity is plenty pervasive without pretending it's universal. It's possible to raise boys differently.
posted by straight at 5:11 PM on May 9, 2019 [26 favorites]
posted by straight at 5:11 PM on May 9, 2019 [26 favorites]
Honestly, that story made me so worried for the cousin's wife. I hope she's safe. I doubt she is.
I wouldn't assume that the cousin necessarily even saw combat. Sounds like he actually got discharged for misconduct pretty early on. If that kind of dude does see action, he will tell you about it in extremely gory detail for the rest of his life, and his stories of that period don't seem to involve it.
I wonder how many generations it's going to take for the damage caused by parents' casual attitudes towards beating their children in the Boomer and prior generations to stop propagating.
posted by praemunire at 5:20 PM on May 9, 2019 [25 favorites]
I wouldn't assume that the cousin necessarily even saw combat. Sounds like he actually got discharged for misconduct pretty early on. If that kind of dude does see action, he will tell you about it in extremely gory detail for the rest of his life, and his stories of that period don't seem to involve it.
I wonder how many generations it's going to take for the damage caused by parents' casual attitudes towards beating their children in the Boomer and prior generations to stop propagating.
posted by praemunire at 5:20 PM on May 9, 2019 [25 favorites]
There may be a decent story in there about toxic masculinity, but there's also one about a guy who seems to have gotten away with nearly-murder all his life, even when he almost beat his cousin to death, and who, by the author's own testimony, isn't mentally ill. That kind of overrides any abstract consideration of Toxic Masculinity in America. I mean, who else might this guy hurt?
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:29 PM on May 9, 2019 [33 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:29 PM on May 9, 2019 [33 favorites]
there's also one about a guy who seems to have gotten away with nearly-murder all his life, even when he almost beat his cousin to death, and who, by the author's own testimony, isn't mentally ill. That kind of overrides any abstract consideration of Toxic Masculinity in America.
Toxic masculinity is what lets the guy get away with it. There's more than one person afflicted with it in this story.
posted by praemunire at 5:38 PM on May 9, 2019 [35 favorites]
Toxic masculinity is what lets the guy get away with it. There's more than one person afflicted with it in this story.
posted by praemunire at 5:38 PM on May 9, 2019 [35 favorites]
Honestly, that story made me so worried for the cousin's wife. I hope she's safe. I doubt she is.
I am related to this type of person. Nobody is ever really safe around this type of person.
posted by trackofalljades at 5:43 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
I am related to this type of person. Nobody is ever really safe around this type of person.
posted by trackofalljades at 5:43 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
By the end of it, I really wanted the wife's story.
Me too. The more I read in the story, the more upset I got. The author chose to bring his child into the company of a relative who had once casually held a gun to someone with no provocation. I mean, I’m sorry he got beat up and all, but what would have happened if his son had inspired the rage?
posted by frumiousb at 5:46 PM on May 9, 2019 [28 favorites]
Me too. The more I read in the story, the more upset I got. The author chose to bring his child into the company of a relative who had once casually held a gun to someone with no provocation. I mean, I’m sorry he got beat up and all, but what would have happened if his son had inspired the rage?
posted by frumiousb at 5:46 PM on May 9, 2019 [28 favorites]
The attack of the author's cousin is pretty much buried deep somewhere in the entire life story of the author with a lot of handwringing
I feel like he attached the fact that he was attacked by his cousin to something clickbaity and trendy in order to make it more publishable. Rather than just an article about how the cousin was obviously dangerous, delusional, mentally disturbed and threatening for many years and even pulled a gun on someone, but no one ever did anything about it. I did not feel that he really established the connection that this was specifically about "toxic masculinity," as opposed to other traits and social factors at work. He really wanted to write a memoir about his self perceived failings as a man, and use the story of the attack to create a thread or some kind of point about masculinity, but it was just very meandering to me, and with a feeling of a poorly attached clickbait tail wagging the dog
posted by knoyers at 5:58 PM on May 9, 2019 [38 favorites]
I feel like he attached the fact that he was attacked by his cousin to something clickbaity and trendy in order to make it more publishable. Rather than just an article about how the cousin was obviously dangerous, delusional, mentally disturbed and threatening for many years and even pulled a gun on someone, but no one ever did anything about it. I did not feel that he really established the connection that this was specifically about "toxic masculinity," as opposed to other traits and social factors at work. He really wanted to write a memoir about his self perceived failings as a man, and use the story of the attack to create a thread or some kind of point about masculinity, but it was just very meandering to me, and with a feeling of a poorly attached clickbait tail wagging the dog
posted by knoyers at 5:58 PM on May 9, 2019 [38 favorites]
Yeah, the cousin didn't make Hylton isolate his wife, cut off her income, and leave her for weeks at a time. Alone with a young child.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:01 PM on May 9, 2019 [47 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:01 PM on May 9, 2019 [47 favorites]
My cousin is not schizophrenic. He wasn’t “hearing voices.” The best explanation that anyone has given me is that he simply snapped.
...the fuck he wasn't? ??? the cousin literally claimed he heard the author whispering in audio recordings of the cousin's house when the author wasn't there. I'm aware most people who experience auditory hallucinations aren't dangerous and a lot of those hallucinations come without other kinds of distorted thinking, but come on.
the author is minimizing his cousin's behavior and focusing almost exclusively on the feelings of people he cares about while explaining how his cousin nearly killed him. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
issendai's series of blog posts about estranged parents includes this piece that does a better job than anything else I've seen of articulating the "emotion creates reality" mindset as a component of abuse dynamics.
that thing where some of people tell stories about trauma like technical incident postmortems, like with timestamps and transcripts? that's not about escaping masculinity, but it's about trying to break out of a specific kind of toxicity that this piece feels bathed in.
posted by bagel at 6:05 PM on May 9, 2019 [24 favorites]
...the fuck he wasn't? ??? the cousin literally claimed he heard the author whispering in audio recordings of the cousin's house when the author wasn't there. I'm aware most people who experience auditory hallucinations aren't dangerous and a lot of those hallucinations come without other kinds of distorted thinking, but come on.
the author is minimizing his cousin's behavior and focusing almost exclusively on the feelings of people he cares about while explaining how his cousin nearly killed him. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
issendai's series of blog posts about estranged parents includes this piece that does a better job than anything else I've seen of articulating the "emotion creates reality" mindset as a component of abuse dynamics.
that thing where some of people tell stories about trauma like technical incident postmortems, like with timestamps and transcripts? that's not about escaping masculinity, but it's about trying to break out of a specific kind of toxicity that this piece feels bathed in.
posted by bagel at 6:05 PM on May 9, 2019 [24 favorites]
"There may be a decent story in there about toxic masculinity, but there's also one about a guy who seems to have gotten away with nearly-murder all his life, even when he almost beat his cousin to death, and who, by the author's own testimony, isn't mentally ill. That kind of overrides any abstract consideration of Toxic Masculinity in America. I mean, who else might this guy hurt?"
Seriously. I felt like I was strung along through a pile of overwrought navelgazing (which I skimmed) by a hook that was insufficiently explored.
This the height of unmenschness. The menschy thing to do would have been to write an entirely different piece.
posted by billjings at 6:07 PM on May 9, 2019 [18 favorites]
Seriously. I felt like I was strung along through a pile of overwrought navelgazing (which I skimmed) by a hook that was insufficiently explored.
This the height of unmenschness. The menschy thing to do would have been to write an entirely different piece.
posted by billjings at 6:07 PM on May 9, 2019 [18 favorites]
I am related to this type of person.
I am, too. The only constraint is that, unlike the cousin, the men in question aren't actually that physically strong.
posted by praemunire at 6:23 PM on May 9, 2019 [1 favorite]
I am, too. The only constraint is that, unlike the cousin, the men in question aren't actually that physically strong.
posted by praemunire at 6:23 PM on May 9, 2019 [1 favorite]
I felt bad for the author. The narrative of the beating was stretched so thinly through the piece that I kept half-wondering if it was some kind of parody. The cousin sounded like a narcissist going through some kind of psychotic episode...but I lost track of how the author wanted me to interpret the violence. This is the weirdest thing I've read in a while.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:45 PM on May 9, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:45 PM on May 9, 2019 [7 favorites]
There were a lot of pints in the story where you could have realized "hey, maybe this dude is dangerous", but the point where it became undeniable was the "RAGE" tattoo. I feel like there maybe aren't many well-adjusted, peaceful people with those.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:54 PM on May 9, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 6:54 PM on May 9, 2019 [9 favorites]
oh man i read it this morning and it was just. ugh. you idolized this piece of shit? really? this dude who has been a vicious violent asshole his entire life? so yet another white guy confuses being an immense piece of shit with "being a man," ignores all warning signs, ignores the feelings of his terrified wife, endangers his entire family. there's nothing new here.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:54 PM on May 9, 2019 [54 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 6:54 PM on May 9, 2019 [54 favorites]
there's nothing new here.
That's basically what I came here to say.
This is horrible not in that it's remarkable, but in that it's so bog-standard normal. Nothing here surprised me. I've known a number of (probably?) less dangerous versions of Shitheel Cousin. I purged them from my life in my mid-20s when I realized they weren't ever going to get better.
In a just world, this should all be lurid and shocking instead of, 'what the fucking fuck did the author expect by the time the cousin got around to him?'
posted by mordax at 6:58 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]
That's basically what I came here to say.
This is horrible not in that it's remarkable, but in that it's so bog-standard normal. Nothing here surprised me. I've known a number of (probably?) less dangerous versions of Shitheel Cousin. I purged them from my life in my mid-20s when I realized they weren't ever going to get better.
In a just world, this should all be lurid and shocking instead of, 'what the fucking fuck did the author expect by the time the cousin got around to him?'
posted by mordax at 6:58 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]
Jesus, I'm still wringing my hands about the cousin's kids, who, apparently, didn't warrant any further mention.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 7:04 PM on May 9, 2019 [25 favorites]
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 7:04 PM on May 9, 2019 [25 favorites]
I mean, I agree with everyone who is like "What did this guy expect?"--I expect he overlooked a lot more behavior than he's described, I doubt his descriptions of what he got out of the friendship are as searching as they could be--but at least he recognized what a fool he had been, in more than one area of life. There are men out there who would have doubled down. There truly are.
Ideally, less than ideally, in a vaguely functional life, you never get into the situation of having your child with you in the home of a known vicious sociopath of a relative who decides to beat the crap out of you for no good reason while your spouse you're divorcing because you got her to give up her professional life for yours and didn't realize what the consequences would be sits home with your other child. But once you're there, you're there. You can only make changes going forward.
posted by praemunire at 7:13 PM on May 9, 2019 [13 favorites]
Ideally, less than ideally, in a vaguely functional life, you never get into the situation of having your child with you in the home of a known vicious sociopath of a relative who decides to beat the crap out of you for no good reason while your spouse you're divorcing because you got her to give up her professional life for yours and didn't realize what the consequences would be sits home with your other child. But once you're there, you're there. You can only make changes going forward.
posted by praemunire at 7:13 PM on May 9, 2019 [13 favorites]
So at least two commenters here presumably read the article that detailed decades of violence and unstable, abusive treatment by the author's cousin, beginning in childhood, and both instantly and separately come to the conclusion that it was the brief and unsatisfactory stint in the military that made him this way. This is why I don't tell people I am a veteran.
posted by seasparrow at 7:22 PM on May 9, 2019 [25 favorites]
posted by seasparrow at 7:22 PM on May 9, 2019 [25 favorites]
i assumed that it was his violent and unstable nature that made him think joining the military would be a fun way to hurt people for money, and i further assumed that this attitude was a big part of whatever horrible shit he did that got him kicked out. i'm just grateful it apparently didn't occur to him to try and become a cop, because that's an environment in which he'd really flourish.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:30 PM on May 9, 2019 [58 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 7:30 PM on May 9, 2019 [58 favorites]
you idolized this piece of shit? really?
In a lot of other discussions here, a statement like this would appropriately be described as victim-blaming. Why is that okay in this context? (Actual question -- not rhetorical.)
posted by neroli at 7:34 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
In a lot of other discussions here, a statement like this would appropriately be described as victim-blaming. Why is that okay in this context? (Actual question -- not rhetorical.)
posted by neroli at 7:34 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
I mean, I don't want to be snarky, but some of the response here sounds a lot like, "hey, he was asking for it."
posted by neroli at 7:40 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by neroli at 7:40 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
There are men out there who would have doubled down. There truly are.
Worth more than a favorite. There absolutely are.
Also, I'm not trying to be glib when I point out how normal this all is. I find that proposition absolutely horrifying.
In a lot of other discussions here, a statement like this would appropriately be described as victim-blaming.
Can't speak for the person who said that, but I absolutely blame the author for his failures here in a way that I wouldn't in many other stories where someone got the shit kicked out of them. The difference is: the author was cool with all this until he was on the receiving end. Cousin pointed a gun at someone else? Welp, at least he put it away, right? Cousin gets into fights? That's manly.
Past the whole 'this is cool when it's happening to a third party' angle, which is morally reprehensible, there's the fact that this guy exposed his wife and child to the cousin. Putting himself at risk? Fine, whatever. Inviting this trouble into the lives of his family members when his wife specifically wanted no part of it? Yeah, no. That's absolutely on him.
posted by mordax at 7:40 PM on May 9, 2019 [43 favorites]
Worth more than a favorite. There absolutely are.
Also, I'm not trying to be glib when I point out how normal this all is. I find that proposition absolutely horrifying.
In a lot of other discussions here, a statement like this would appropriately be described as victim-blaming.
Can't speak for the person who said that, but I absolutely blame the author for his failures here in a way that I wouldn't in many other stories where someone got the shit kicked out of them. The difference is: the author was cool with all this until he was on the receiving end. Cousin pointed a gun at someone else? Welp, at least he put it away, right? Cousin gets into fights? That's manly.
Past the whole 'this is cool when it's happening to a third party' angle, which is morally reprehensible, there's the fact that this guy exposed his wife and child to the cousin. Putting himself at risk? Fine, whatever. Inviting this trouble into the lives of his family members when his wife specifically wanted no part of it? Yeah, no. That's absolutely on him.
posted by mordax at 7:40 PM on May 9, 2019 [43 favorites]
the author thought it was fucking cool as shit when his asshole cousin pulled a gun on children and beat up a little girl. i don't feel bad for HIM, i feel bad for his family and his friends and anyone else who had to be in the asshole cousin's presence even for a second because they foolishly befriended the author and trusted him.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:43 PM on May 9, 2019 [35 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 7:43 PM on May 9, 2019 [35 favorites]
Neroli, I'm not saying this is morally correct or anything, because blanket statements always fail as soon as they meet an actual individual in the actual world. But what I read sounded like the author spent his life watching his personal leopard eat peoples faces, and kind of gloried in it, and then was surprised and shocked when his own face got eaten. Maybe that's why there's a little question like, "what did you think was going to happen?"
posted by Horkus at 7:44 PM on May 9, 2019 [39 favorites]
posted by Horkus at 7:44 PM on May 9, 2019 [39 favorites]
you idolized this piece of shit? really?
In a lot of other discussions here, a statement like this would appropriately be described as victim-blaming. Why is that okay in this context? (Actual question -- not rhetorical.)
I think that's the issue people are taking with the success of the piece. If, in fact, the answer to you idolized this piece of shit? really? is "toxic masculinity", the piece does nothing to examine how or why. He hints at things in his childhood that maybe could connect dots, could show why swimming in that water makes you unable to see that water will--ultimately--make you wet. But he ignores them.
The author is still so seemingly blind to the effects of his dysfunctional family, to the pattern of violence his cousin implicated him in in their youth, and his own perpetuation of the isolation and control necessary for abuse, that people are responding poorly. I mean, yes, his cousin had a pattern of creating intimidation and fear and controlling him throughout their relationship, so Author would never see the danger Author was putting himself and others in. This essay demonstrates that he still can't say that. Which may well be an indictment of toxic masculinity, but Author has not written one.
posted by crush at 7:47 PM on May 9, 2019 [33 favorites]
In a lot of other discussions here, a statement like this would appropriately be described as victim-blaming. Why is that okay in this context? (Actual question -- not rhetorical.)
I think that's the issue people are taking with the success of the piece. If, in fact, the answer to you idolized this piece of shit? really? is "toxic masculinity", the piece does nothing to examine how or why. He hints at things in his childhood that maybe could connect dots, could show why swimming in that water makes you unable to see that water will--ultimately--make you wet. But he ignores them.
The author is still so seemingly blind to the effects of his dysfunctional family, to the pattern of violence his cousin implicated him in in their youth, and his own perpetuation of the isolation and control necessary for abuse, that people are responding poorly. I mean, yes, his cousin had a pattern of creating intimidation and fear and controlling him throughout their relationship, so Author would never see the danger Author was putting himself and others in. This essay demonstrates that he still can't say that. Which may well be an indictment of toxic masculinity, but Author has not written one.
posted by crush at 7:47 PM on May 9, 2019 [33 favorites]
This was a weird piece wasn't it? On the one hand, I'm so over stories about middle-aged men realising they are shitheels after getting divorced, and penning long meandering pieces that center their hurt feelings and subsequent realisations as something profound and/or at all unusual and much more important than the voices and thoughts of women who have known they were shit-heels for years. I'm so over them I have altitude sickness.
On the other hand, there is something interesting to be sad about masculine roles, where men look for role models of masculinity and how they navigate aggression and control etc in a chauvinist society that condones - if not valorises - that behaviour in men.
But I don't think this piece really got there in regards to the latter. I can empathise (to a degree) with his thoughtless drift towards someone who typifies those values (I personally don't, those people terrify and disgust me in equal measure, because of my own background, but I can see how a person could go the other way). The author still doesn't get outside of himself, ultimately - at least not successfully in my view though he kinda reaches for it at the end.
What kind of society lets a man beat someone nearly to death for no reason, and doesn't jail them, lets them persumably still live full time with children, doesn't consider them mentally ill, essentially treats them like a dangerous animal and basically says "Avoid this animal. Be careful you don't set them off"? That's the real question. How much social licence is there for a person to act this way, or even in this wheelhouse?
The author kind of gropes towards seeing his behaviour and his cousin's as part of a spectrum, but the article needs more clarity and more voices to get there. It was too navel-gazey otherwise.
posted by smoke at 7:48 PM on May 9, 2019 [48 favorites]
On the other hand, there is something interesting to be sad about masculine roles, where men look for role models of masculinity and how they navigate aggression and control etc in a chauvinist society that condones - if not valorises - that behaviour in men.
But I don't think this piece really got there in regards to the latter. I can empathise (to a degree) with his thoughtless drift towards someone who typifies those values (I personally don't, those people terrify and disgust me in equal measure, because of my own background, but I can see how a person could go the other way). The author still doesn't get outside of himself, ultimately - at least not successfully in my view though he kinda reaches for it at the end.
What kind of society lets a man beat someone nearly to death for no reason, and doesn't jail them, lets them persumably still live full time with children, doesn't consider them mentally ill, essentially treats them like a dangerous animal and basically says "Avoid this animal. Be careful you don't set them off"? That's the real question. How much social licence is there for a person to act this way, or even in this wheelhouse?
The author kind of gropes towards seeing his behaviour and his cousin's as part of a spectrum, but the article needs more clarity and more voices to get there. It was too navel-gazey otherwise.
posted by smoke at 7:48 PM on May 9, 2019 [48 favorites]
Very honestly, I can’t say who comes off worse — the writer or his cousin.
posted by jfwlucy at 7:51 PM on May 9, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by jfwlucy at 7:51 PM on May 9, 2019 [9 favorites]
Wow -- guys, I'm pretty sure that I worked for this guy's dad in Baltimore? It was my first job out of college and mind-numbing (I was a legal assistant) but his dad was nice and took me under his wing a bit. Small world.
Anyhow, this piece was thin and very disjointed, and I think the writer is not self-aware enough to tell this story yet. He still seems to be processing what his relationships with his cousin was, and what his relationship with his wife was, and why. And honestly, I think that maybe once he does have that self-awareness, it still won't necessarily be an interesting story (of self-discovery?) to anyone else but him. Well, and to his (ex) wife and his kids, maybe.
posted by rue72 at 8:28 PM on May 9, 2019 [12 favorites]
Anyhow, this piece was thin and very disjointed, and I think the writer is not self-aware enough to tell this story yet. He still seems to be processing what his relationships with his cousin was, and what his relationship with his wife was, and why. And honestly, I think that maybe once he does have that self-awareness, it still won't necessarily be an interesting story (of self-discovery?) to anyone else but him. Well, and to his (ex) wife and his kids, maybe.
posted by rue72 at 8:28 PM on May 9, 2019 [12 favorites]
Anyone else notice how the cop in the hospital didn't believe the author of this piece hadn't done something to provoke the cousin: they sneered with certainty that no one gets beaten half to death for no reason. That's fucked up. I'm used to cops not believing female victims, guess cops are so toxic they disbelieve the male victims too.
Also, the cousin basically does no time for the assault, and the author of the piece has a restraining order against the cousin, that's it? Like how did the cousin not do more time?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:32 PM on May 9, 2019 [12 favorites]
Also, the cousin basically does no time for the assault, and the author of the piece has a restraining order against the cousin, that's it? Like how did the cousin not do more time?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:32 PM on May 9, 2019 [12 favorites]
There are three things jumbled together here:
1) The author grew up idolizing a brutal guy because he liked the sense of power and society failed to sufficiently counteract the male stereotype.
2) The author found himself in the societally common situation of being able to bring in a reasonable salary while his wife could not. This had predictable consequences, but he blames his acceptance of those consequences on accepting a male stereotype.
3) One day his brutal cousin beat the shit out of him. This element could have been removed into its own story and it would not have affected the other two issues at all.
I'm always happy to see men (particularly parents of boys) struggle with these issues. It's not pretty, it's certainly not perfect, but this is culture change in action. Sons learn a huge amount about masculinity from their fathers, and for all the author's flaws his son is lucky to have someone who thinks about this stuff in his life.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:46 PM on May 9, 2019 [10 favorites]
1) The author grew up idolizing a brutal guy because he liked the sense of power and society failed to sufficiently counteract the male stereotype.
2) The author found himself in the societally common situation of being able to bring in a reasonable salary while his wife could not. This had predictable consequences, but he blames his acceptance of those consequences on accepting a male stereotype.
3) One day his brutal cousin beat the shit out of him. This element could have been removed into its own story and it would not have affected the other two issues at all.
I'm always happy to see men (particularly parents of boys) struggle with these issues. It's not pretty, it's certainly not perfect, but this is culture change in action. Sons learn a huge amount about masculinity from their fathers, and for all the author's flaws his son is lucky to have someone who thinks about this stuff in his life.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:46 PM on May 9, 2019 [10 favorites]
I'm so frustrated with the author. He has gone through life making many very shitty decisions: all the misbehavior leading to expulsion from school, moving to the middle of nowhere right after his wife got her PhD without considering the effect this would have on her career or their relationship dynamic, choosing to spend his meagre free time chatting to his asshole cousin rather than building relationships with his wife or children, bringing his child to the house of a dangerous unstable person, just to name a few.
And instead of taking any responsibility for any of these decisions, taking responsibility for, at best, moving thoughtlessly and carelessly through life, he blames it on an amorphous "toxic masculinity". Which, okay, maybe it played some part in it, although that's still unclear to me.
But also maybe he needs to recognise that he has agency in this world and his decisions and choices are his and they've hurt other people and he needs to own them. I get the impression he's still a long way off from that.
posted by mosessis at 8:56 PM on May 9, 2019 [24 favorites]
And instead of taking any responsibility for any of these decisions, taking responsibility for, at best, moving thoughtlessly and carelessly through life, he blames it on an amorphous "toxic masculinity". Which, okay, maybe it played some part in it, although that's still unclear to me.
But also maybe he needs to recognise that he has agency in this world and his decisions and choices are his and they've hurt other people and he needs to own them. I get the impression he's still a long way off from that.
posted by mosessis at 8:56 PM on May 9, 2019 [24 favorites]
Very honestly, I can’t say who comes off worse — the writer or his cousin.This is hyperbole for giggles right? You don't actually mean this I hope?
I feel like there's an extent to which "toxic masculinity" is a thing that people are leaning on a lot in the current zeitgeist. So the author of this piece has experienced a Very Bad Thing and is a bit leaning on that for his essay here. As is the case with broad zeitgeisty deals it's both hard to argue for or against it as having much helpful explanatory power. Is this toxic masculinity? I guess? Is this just a story about a guy that didn't understand what his cousin's violence meant until it was turned on him? Does the failed marriage have a whole lot to do with the rest of the essay?
I don't know. I feel like rue72 is probably correct overall in their assessment.
Anyone else notice how the cop in the hospital didn't believe the author of this piece hadn't done something to provoke the cousin: they sneered with certainty that no one gets beaten half to death for no reason. That's fucked up. I'm used to cops not believing female victims, guess cops are so toxic they disbelieve the male victims too.Spend a few years taking reports and you'll get a better sense for what I believe was likely going on here. Keep in mind that the author's perception of "sneering" may or may not bear a strong resemblance to what occurred. Victim interviews are tricky, especially because the statement "no one gets beaten half to death for no reason" is generally true.
It's not ALWAYS true but it's generally true, and it was true in this case. The cousin's reason was bad and incoherent, but it existed. Doing things like pressing half-dead victims for details about what lead up to the crime can very easily feel like sneering, blaming, etc. It's also important. As full and complete a picture of events as is possible is necessary to successfully prosecute crimes. The sooner that full picture is developed, the better the final result is. The reality is also that victims lie for a variety of reasons. Imagine the victim here was assaulted because of some minor transgression, he broke a plate or something. That transgression absolutely does not make the assault legally or morally ok but if it comes up in court and makes the victim look like a liar that can result in acquittal or dropped charges. I can not stress enough how important it is to get as factual and accurate a story as possible as early as possible. So if the victim says "he did it for no reason!" because - as in this case - the reason was bananas, and the cops press for a reason, that's going to feel pretty bad for the victim.
Obviously I'm not a time-travelling psychic. Maybe the cops that took the statement were actually assholes, that happens as well. I'm just pointing out that's not the only possible explanation.
Also, the cousin basically does no time for the assault, and the author of the piece has a restraining order against the cousin, that's it? Like how did the cousin not do more time?Sentencing varies widely depending on the crime involved, guidelines, aggravating factors, history, etc. Criminal court cases are public record, you could presumably find and read the rationale behind the judge's decision with sufficient effort, since you have the victim's name and the state in which it occurred.
posted by firebrick at 9:01 PM on May 9, 2019 [9 favorites]
At least one other part of this is that this guy was "woke" for a while. He experimented with his sexuality, he realized the toxicity of his conception of gender roles, and he seemed to have better ambitions for his son. He didn't actually seem to make any of this concrete until his cousin made it concerete by beating the shit out of him. I think that's the worth of the piece, although maybe that's not much.
posted by codacorolla at 9:01 PM on May 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 9:01 PM on May 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
experimented with his sexuality
Can we not? Bisexuality is not an experiment.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:07 PM on May 9, 2019 [29 favorites]
Can we not? Bisexuality is not an experiment.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:07 PM on May 9, 2019 [29 favorites]
My reaction after reading this meandering weird ass article:
- The author partook in Updike-ian level navel gazing. (This is legitimate grounds to not read the article and, for once, I would not begrudge anyone to RTFA.)
- The author actively exploited the story of his cousin’s lifelong violent behavior to somehow explain away his own shitty behavior toward his wife, children and others; while also using his cousin as a proxy character to “tell” on himself without having to go into the darkest details of just how bad the author has been throughout his life - mostly romanticizing and skimming over his own flaws and mistakes.
- The author doesn’t have a sound understanding of what defines, causes, or perpetuates toxic masculinity, and loses his own plot.
- Most egregious of all: the author does not offer any solutions for how we can begin to re-examine violence and toxic behavior in men. And if one isn’t going to offer solutions, they should at least provoke good questions. This article provokes questions, but not the striking, eye-opening kind the author probably hoped. Most of my questions, after reading this, involve, “How did this get published?” And “When do we get to read an amazing rebuttal and takedown by a woman?” “Why do we still think mediocre men should be leading the conversation on toxic masculinity when they can’t even admit, to themselves, what toxic masculinity is and how they actively enable its existence?”
posted by nightrecordings at 9:13 PM on May 9, 2019 [44 favorites]
- The author partook in Updike-ian level navel gazing. (This is legitimate grounds to not read the article and, for once, I would not begrudge anyone to RTFA.)
- The author actively exploited the story of his cousin’s lifelong violent behavior to somehow explain away his own shitty behavior toward his wife, children and others; while also using his cousin as a proxy character to “tell” on himself without having to go into the darkest details of just how bad the author has been throughout his life - mostly romanticizing and skimming over his own flaws and mistakes.
- The author doesn’t have a sound understanding of what defines, causes, or perpetuates toxic masculinity, and loses his own plot.
- Most egregious of all: the author does not offer any solutions for how we can begin to re-examine violence and toxic behavior in men. And if one isn’t going to offer solutions, they should at least provoke good questions. This article provokes questions, but not the striking, eye-opening kind the author probably hoped. Most of my questions, after reading this, involve, “How did this get published?” And “When do we get to read an amazing rebuttal and takedown by a woman?” “Why do we still think mediocre men should be leading the conversation on toxic masculinity when they can’t even admit, to themselves, what toxic masculinity is and how they actively enable its existence?”
posted by nightrecordings at 9:13 PM on May 9, 2019 [44 favorites]
I think I read a different article than all of you.
posted by biogeo at 9:22 PM on May 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 9:22 PM on May 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
2) The author found himself in the societally common situation of being able to bring in a reasonable salary while his wife could not. This had predictable consequences, but he blames his acceptance of those consequences on accepting a male stereotype.
To clarify, he found himself in the situation where his wife -- a university faculty member with a doctorate in art history -- could not bring in a reasonable salary after they moved to an isolated cabin in the literal middle of the mountains. Had they stayed in Austin, or indeed, moved to any major (or most minor) city, it's entirely plausible that his wife would have had a steadier, better paying job than him.
I say "they moved"; it's really unclear what the wife's view is. The major decisions -- to move to the mountains and give up on a career, to have kids and do the work to support them, to move back to an actual city but into a fixer-upper when the hubby loves renovations -- are presented as joint "we decided"*, but with no sense whether his wife led the charge, or she had to be talked into a series of decisions that seem in retrospect predictably misery inducing.
* in fact, the decision to have kids is, like the decision for him to take on a book project that involved spending a month in the South Pacific, represented as just something that happened to them with no choice on their part, like stormy weather.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:44 PM on May 9, 2019 [30 favorites]
To clarify, he found himself in the situation where his wife -- a university faculty member with a doctorate in art history -- could not bring in a reasonable salary after they moved to an isolated cabin in the literal middle of the mountains. Had they stayed in Austin, or indeed, moved to any major (or most minor) city, it's entirely plausible that his wife would have had a steadier, better paying job than him.
I say "they moved"; it's really unclear what the wife's view is. The major decisions -- to move to the mountains and give up on a career, to have kids and do the work to support them, to move back to an actual city but into a fixer-upper when the hubby loves renovations -- are presented as joint "we decided"*, but with no sense whether his wife led the charge, or she had to be talked into a series of decisions that seem in retrospect predictably misery inducing.
* in fact, the decision to have kids is, like the decision for him to take on a book project that involved spending a month in the South Pacific, represented as just something that happened to them with no choice on their part, like stormy weather.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:44 PM on May 9, 2019 [30 favorites]
And his reflection on it after listing a litany of being a shitty husband is like 'Looks like we're in a 1950s relationship. Huh'
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:50 PM on May 9, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:50 PM on May 9, 2019 [10 favorites]
I certainly agree there are a lot of blind spots in Hylton's narrative. But is there a certain amount of self-awareness that male victims of battering are required to have before they deserve our sympathy? That kind of measurement seems a little grotesque to me. Because as fucked-up as the story is, that's how I see the author: as a person who was in love with a violent man, but ignored and forgave that violence because it accorded with received ideas of masculinity. That's certainly a familiar story for women to tell. Maybe when men tell their version, it seems more awkward and not as immediately convincing. That's understandable. But I do find the "well, what did he expect?" reaction to a narrative of extreme violence more than a little upsetting.
posted by neroli at 9:57 PM on May 9, 2019 [37 favorites]
posted by neroli at 9:57 PM on May 9, 2019 [37 favorites]
His reflection on his shitty, fucked up relationship with his cousin seemed like a counterpoint and complement to his shitty, fucked up relationship to his wife. It's important to realize that he's not telling the story linearly, and that the point where his cousin beats the shit out of him is also pretty close to present day - where he's realized that his awful behavior has caused a split with his wife, and that he hasn't been a good father to his son. All of those things, tied together with toxic masculinity that's been abetted by his admiration for his cousin throughout his life, are one and the same.
posted by codacorolla at 10:04 PM on May 9, 2019 [17 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 10:04 PM on May 9, 2019 [17 favorites]
It's just hard to understand why this was worthy of being published in the New York Times Magazine. They keep having the temerity to have a paywall, and this is what they want us to pay for.
posted by Caduceus at 10:21 PM on May 9, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by Caduceus at 10:21 PM on May 9, 2019 [16 favorites]
His reflection on his shitty, fucked up relationship with his cousin seemed like a counterpoint and complement to his shitty, fucked up relationship to his wife. It's important to realize that he's not telling the story linearly, and that the point where his cousin beats the shit out of him is also pretty close to present day
Yes, exactly. I feel like the author is getting a lot of criticism here for not examining things that he's clearly examining, and getting us to examine, through storytelling devices like this. The narrative isn't meandering, it's intended to help us see the author and his cousin as parallel. The story of the cousin violently attacking the author is interwoven with the emotional and psychological exploitation and neglect that the author committed on his wife and kids; the toxicity of each of those are apparent independently but by juxtaposing them the author wants us to see them as similar and sharing a source. The fact that the author was a shitty husband and father, and an idiot to trust his clearly violent cousin is... kind of the point.
I don't know what kind of article I'd write in the aftermath of someone I loved and trusted for my entire life violently attacking and nearly killing me, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be whatever a lot of folks here seem to be looking for.
posted by biogeo at 11:02 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]
Yes, exactly. I feel like the author is getting a lot of criticism here for not examining things that he's clearly examining, and getting us to examine, through storytelling devices like this. The narrative isn't meandering, it's intended to help us see the author and his cousin as parallel. The story of the cousin violently attacking the author is interwoven with the emotional and psychological exploitation and neglect that the author committed on his wife and kids; the toxicity of each of those are apparent independently but by juxtaposing them the author wants us to see them as similar and sharing a source. The fact that the author was a shitty husband and father, and an idiot to trust his clearly violent cousin is... kind of the point.
I don't know what kind of article I'd write in the aftermath of someone I loved and trusted for my entire life violently attacking and nearly killing me, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be whatever a lot of folks here seem to be looking for.
posted by biogeo at 11:02 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]
Is this toxic masculinity? I guess? Is this just a story about a guy that didn't understand what his cousin's violence meant until it was turned on him?
I think what the author was trying to get at was why he didn't clue in. His claim, which I believe, is that being a violent brute is a 'normal' thing for some men to be. It's not the sort of thing that sets off alarm bells. It's just a guy being a guy.
That 'normal', the blind resignation to an idea that some men are just violent assholes, is a big part of toxic masculinity as far as I'm concerned. The lack of accountability does no one any good.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:27 AM on May 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
I think what the author was trying to get at was why he didn't clue in. His claim, which I believe, is that being a violent brute is a 'normal' thing for some men to be. It's not the sort of thing that sets off alarm bells. It's just a guy being a guy.
That 'normal', the blind resignation to an idea that some men are just violent assholes, is a big part of toxic masculinity as far as I'm concerned. The lack of accountability does no one any good.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:27 AM on May 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
I appreciate the attempt. I feel like we need a lot more of these essays out there. But I'd like to send this back. It reminds me of a senior-year non-fiction writing seminar where we wrote an essay for the midterm, got a bunch of critiques, then completely rewrote it for the final.
The rewrite should (in my opinion) address these questions:
- What kind of abuse occurred in the grandparents' generation: to what abuse were the author's dad and the cousin's dad (presumably dad) exposed? What attempts did either of those men make to address that baggage?
- What was the cousin's relationship with his father like? Did he get abused?
- What was the author's relationship with his father's abuse like? (I know it was addressed but want to hear more.) As he got abused at various points throughout his childhood, how did that influence his conception of manhood? How did that influence his idolization of his cousin? Is the fearfulness he mentioned caused by his relationship with his father? Is the similarity between his cousin's violence and his father's the reason he felt so protected by his cousin? What counseling did he get with his father? Where did that lead?
- To what extent does the author attribute his own absence as a father to his own relationship with his father? Is it just that he was modeling the 1950s-style division of labor, or was he scared of being a father because his own father was violent?
- These men he dated ... he was trying to find a connection to new father figures? What is their relevance to the main thesis here? Does he feel like he ever found a model of positive, loving fatherhood? Or did he fail to find one; was that the reason he was so absent?
- Now that he is trying to come away from toxic masculinity, how is his own parenting changing? To what extent does the author have violent outbursts or instincts in that direction? How does he act as a parent when challenged by his own kids? How are his relationships with his parents (if they're still alive) changing?
The author acts like this is about masculine archetypes floating around in the zeitgeist, but I think that's largely bullshit and a cop out from looking more closely at his own history. I think it reflects a certain numbness that still exists due to the abuse he experienced in his upbringing.
But again, I respect the attempt and appreciate the way the article got me thinking. Thanks for the post.
posted by salvia at 12:36 AM on May 10, 2019 [21 favorites]
The rewrite should (in my opinion) address these questions:
- What kind of abuse occurred in the grandparents' generation: to what abuse were the author's dad and the cousin's dad (presumably dad) exposed? What attempts did either of those men make to address that baggage?
- What was the cousin's relationship with his father like? Did he get abused?
- What was the author's relationship with his father's abuse like? (I know it was addressed but want to hear more.) As he got abused at various points throughout his childhood, how did that influence his conception of manhood? How did that influence his idolization of his cousin? Is the fearfulness he mentioned caused by his relationship with his father? Is the similarity between his cousin's violence and his father's the reason he felt so protected by his cousin? What counseling did he get with his father? Where did that lead?
- To what extent does the author attribute his own absence as a father to his own relationship with his father? Is it just that he was modeling the 1950s-style division of labor, or was he scared of being a father because his own father was violent?
- These men he dated ... he was trying to find a connection to new father figures? What is their relevance to the main thesis here? Does he feel like he ever found a model of positive, loving fatherhood? Or did he fail to find one; was that the reason he was so absent?
- Now that he is trying to come away from toxic masculinity, how is his own parenting changing? To what extent does the author have violent outbursts or instincts in that direction? How does he act as a parent when challenged by his own kids? How are his relationships with his parents (if they're still alive) changing?
The author acts like this is about masculine archetypes floating around in the zeitgeist, but I think that's largely bullshit and a cop out from looking more closely at his own history. I think it reflects a certain numbness that still exists due to the abuse he experienced in his upbringing.
But again, I respect the attempt and appreciate the way the article got me thinking. Thanks for the post.
posted by salvia at 12:36 AM on May 10, 2019 [21 favorites]
I wonder how many generations it's going to take for the damage caused by parents' casual attitudes towards beating their children in the Boomer and prior generations to stop propagating.
This is kind of tangential to the article but I have a longstanding theory that part of the reason it's hard to make societal progress as a whole on this stuff is because the distribution of people who no longer raise their kids in an actively abusive way is extremely lumpy and uneven in any given generation.
I'm 30ish, and among people my own age I know folks who are one or several generations removed from the last abusive generation (i.e. at least their parents and sometimes even grandparents & beyond were able to raise kids in a healthy way), vs people like me who were raised by parents who were still actively abusive but who have committed to not perpetuating that onto the next generation (either by never having kids like I plan to, or by taking great pains to understand what healthy child-rearing looks like for their own families), vs people who were raised abusively and will inevitably perpetuate that onto their own kids because their particular family system isn't ready or able to break the trend right now.
Go back a few hundred years and it seems like nearly all child-rearing practices and recommendations were kind of abusive (e.g. low-attachment/high-authoritarian) apart from like a handful of wealthy Quakers or whatever who could see a better way. Fast forward to the mid-20th century and you begin to get a few more people who get it but still plenty who don't.
So society ends up with a blend of third-generation or more "get it" parents parenting alongside people who still can't shake what was done to raise them out of the way they raise their kids and suddenly it makes a lot more sense that we struggle at the societal level to make even, meaningful progress on this stuff. For everyone my age who's well-adjusted and had loving attachment-oriented parents, there's someone like me raised by parents who were too traumatised to be able to reject the shitty ideas about how kids work that their trauma wrought in them, and some of us are able to choose not to pass that on and some of us straight-up aren't.
posted by terretu at 1:23 AM on May 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
This is kind of tangential to the article but I have a longstanding theory that part of the reason it's hard to make societal progress as a whole on this stuff is because the distribution of people who no longer raise their kids in an actively abusive way is extremely lumpy and uneven in any given generation.
I'm 30ish, and among people my own age I know folks who are one or several generations removed from the last abusive generation (i.e. at least their parents and sometimes even grandparents & beyond were able to raise kids in a healthy way), vs people like me who were raised by parents who were still actively abusive but who have committed to not perpetuating that onto the next generation (either by never having kids like I plan to, or by taking great pains to understand what healthy child-rearing looks like for their own families), vs people who were raised abusively and will inevitably perpetuate that onto their own kids because their particular family system isn't ready or able to break the trend right now.
Go back a few hundred years and it seems like nearly all child-rearing practices and recommendations were kind of abusive (e.g. low-attachment/high-authoritarian) apart from like a handful of wealthy Quakers or whatever who could see a better way. Fast forward to the mid-20th century and you begin to get a few more people who get it but still plenty who don't.
So society ends up with a blend of third-generation or more "get it" parents parenting alongside people who still can't shake what was done to raise them out of the way they raise their kids and suddenly it makes a lot more sense that we struggle at the societal level to make even, meaningful progress on this stuff. For everyone my age who's well-adjusted and had loving attachment-oriented parents, there's someone like me raised by parents who were too traumatised to be able to reject the shitty ideas about how kids work that their trauma wrought in them, and some of us are able to choose not to pass that on and some of us straight-up aren't.
posted by terretu at 1:23 AM on May 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
I agree with biogeo, actually. It's not Pulitzer-Prize-winning material, but people seem to be wanting an essay, and this is a narrative. It's nonfiction, but it's a narrative. He's going to juxtapose the threads in storytelling without spelling out every last detail of his thesis. This technique can be executed well or badly, of course, but some people seem to be criticizing him for doing backstroke when he's in a freestyle competition.
posted by praemunire at 1:30 AM on May 10, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 1:30 AM on May 10, 2019 [11 favorites]
I get the criticism of this piece—the author seems like a self-centered ass, to say nothing about the cousin—but I’m not getting how folks are missing the link to toxic masculinity here. It it seems to me that he does so explicitly in this paragraph (emphasis mine):
But when I look back on the crisis of my own life three years ago — the explosion of our friendship and the implosion of my marriage — I see a common thread. My attraction to my cousin and my detachment as a husband both reside in the pantheon of male tropes. Masculinity is a religion. It is a compendium of saints: the vaunted patriarch, the taciturn cowboy, the errant knight, reluctant hero, gentle giant and omniscient father. Like Scripture, each contains a story of implicit values. Fraternity, dominance, adamance, certitude — these are the commandments of male identity. Maybe in societies deep through history, those qualities helped organize a world of chaos, but the antediluvian constructs of masculinity are easily weaponized in modern life. The virtue of strength invites abuse. Adamance enables intransigence. Restraint devolves to disengagement, and fraternity yields exclusion. The veneration of those traits is poison to young men. It offers an easy escape from the necessary struggle of self-reflection and replaces the work of interior discovery with a menu of prefabricated identities.posted by joedan at 2:02 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
but I’m not getting how folks are missing the link to toxic masculinity here.
The subtitle of the article promises an explanation for how toxic masculinity caused his cousin’s attack and it never really delivers. Paranoia and possible schizophrenia provide much more direct explanations.
On the other hand the connections the author tries to make between his own actions and toxic masculinity seem pretty clear.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:39 AM on May 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
The subtitle of the article promises an explanation for how toxic masculinity caused his cousin’s attack and it never really delivers. Paranoia and possible schizophrenia provide much more direct explanations.
On the other hand the connections the author tries to make between his own actions and toxic masculinity seem pretty clear.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:39 AM on May 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
The cousin sounds like a serious bully nut job narcissist
AFAICT this is literally every cishet man who didn't have actively abusive parents.
cishet man here, with parents who weren't all that abusive...Well ok, there was that one time at 14 dad hit me across the face, and it drew blood, but that was also the time I called the cops, got the shithead thrown in jail for the weekend, and slapped him with a restraining order for 6 months that precipitated my parents' divorce, which saddled him with decades of child support payments. We don't talk anymore.
Before that, he only spanked, rarely, and sometimes yelled. Mom never did. But you know what? Fuck that. Don't hit your kids. Don't hit anyone. Don't be violent.
I've never been in a fight. I've taken punches to the face twice, didn't return them. I've accidentally hurt (never actually injured, but they said "ow", at which of course I stop) by playing too rough at times. Never intentionally.
Anyone who will strike you, who will pull the trigger, who will knowingly inflict physical pain and rationalize it as right for whatever goal other than stopping immediate harm to oneself or another, is a monster and deserves to be treated as such.
Best quote from article - the antediluvian constructs of masculinity are easily weaponized in modern life. The virtue of strength invites abuse. Adamance enables intransigence. Restraint devolves to disengagement, and fraternity yields exclusion.
Weaponized.
The author says, I wonder if I can give them another model of what it is to be a man, one free of the corrosive impulses within us and the expectations around us. STEP ONE - STOP EXCUSING OR TOLERATING VIOLENCE IN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS. End them if you must. It's not okay, and if you won't do it, article author, I'm sure I'll be shunning you and your still-toxic, miseducated children at some point down the road.
Some people have the patience for it I guess? I don't though. Fuck violent people. "But don't you want a relationship with your father--" NO. "But he just wants to--" NO. "But don't you miss--" NO. Just. NO. He hit a child. Dealbreaker. Same rule I apply to any parents I know. Hit your kids, we're done.
I think I maybe told this story here before, but in 2002, I was in college, looking to pay my tuition, and the army was right over there. All I had to do was sign up and drive a truck for 4 years or something. I put my name on that paper, but before I got to basic training, I noticed Shrub43 and Cheney's cohort of hellspawn beating the war drums. I can't say I knew where it was going, but just the stench of "unjust war" made me tell a little white lie and get out. My student loans bought me peace of mind. I have killed exactly zero innocent people.
I don't know what it means to "be a man", but I know what it means to stand against coercion and violence in relationships. I will die friendless and alone and watch my country burn before I tolerate people like the cousin, or people who tolerate people like that.
posted by saysthis at 3:14 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
AFAICT this is literally every cishet man who didn't have actively abusive parents.
cishet man here, with parents who weren't all that abusive...Well ok, there was that one time at 14 dad hit me across the face, and it drew blood, but that was also the time I called the cops, got the shithead thrown in jail for the weekend, and slapped him with a restraining order for 6 months that precipitated my parents' divorce, which saddled him with decades of child support payments. We don't talk anymore.
Before that, he only spanked, rarely, and sometimes yelled. Mom never did. But you know what? Fuck that. Don't hit your kids. Don't hit anyone. Don't be violent.
I've never been in a fight. I've taken punches to the face twice, didn't return them. I've accidentally hurt (never actually injured, but they said "ow", at which of course I stop) by playing too rough at times. Never intentionally.
Anyone who will strike you, who will pull the trigger, who will knowingly inflict physical pain and rationalize it as right for whatever goal other than stopping immediate harm to oneself or another, is a monster and deserves to be treated as such.
Best quote from article - the antediluvian constructs of masculinity are easily weaponized in modern life. The virtue of strength invites abuse. Adamance enables intransigence. Restraint devolves to disengagement, and fraternity yields exclusion.
Weaponized.
The author says, I wonder if I can give them another model of what it is to be a man, one free of the corrosive impulses within us and the expectations around us. STEP ONE - STOP EXCUSING OR TOLERATING VIOLENCE IN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS. End them if you must. It's not okay, and if you won't do it, article author, I'm sure I'll be shunning you and your still-toxic, miseducated children at some point down the road.
Some people have the patience for it I guess? I don't though. Fuck violent people. "But don't you want a relationship with your father--" NO. "But he just wants to--" NO. "But don't you miss--" NO. Just. NO. He hit a child. Dealbreaker. Same rule I apply to any parents I know. Hit your kids, we're done.
I think I maybe told this story here before, but in 2002, I was in college, looking to pay my tuition, and the army was right over there. All I had to do was sign up and drive a truck for 4 years or something. I put my name on that paper, but before I got to basic training, I noticed Shrub43 and Cheney's cohort of hellspawn beating the war drums. I can't say I knew where it was going, but just the stench of "unjust war" made me tell a little white lie and get out. My student loans bought me peace of mind. I have killed exactly zero innocent people.
I don't know what it means to "be a man", but I know what it means to stand against coercion and violence in relationships. I will die friendless and alone and watch my country burn before I tolerate people like the cousin, or people who tolerate people like that.
posted by saysthis at 3:14 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
Um, no one else noticed that this jerk thinks it's just fine to rub shoulders with and write nice stories about mass murderers? Friendly little stories about the warm, enduring friendship of those draft-dodging war-monger mass-murdering Cheney and Rumsfeld -- how sweet. He thinks he's facing the rot within him because he's facing his admiration of his cousin, while he's not even glancing at his gains from association with these people? He's learned nothing. He's got nothing I want.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:58 AM on May 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by dancestoblue at 3:58 AM on May 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
I'm really just so flummoxed by these fever-dream nightmare stories about being abused; this one oddly reminds me of 50 Shades of Grey. Sounds like Mr. Hylton had a pretty harrowing experience, nonetheless.
It’s to watch for the dogmas of masculinity taking root in myself each day, to acknowledge whatever virtues they contain and disavow the rest.
I think the unidimensional diagnosis of what's happening here -- being victimized by an apparently cruel and immoral person -- as being the result of culturally-constructed values of masculinity itself is simply callow.
Masculinity is a religion. It is a compendium of saints: the vaunted patriarch, the taciturn cowboy, the errant knight, reluctant hero, gentle giant and omniscient father. Like Scripture, each contains a story of implicit values. Fraternity, dominance, adamance, certitude — these are the commandments of male identity. Maybe in societies deep through history, those qualities helped organize a world of chaos, but the antediluvian constructs of masculinity are easily weaponized in modern life. The virtue of strength invites abuse. Adamance enables intransigence. Restraint devolves to disengagement, and fraternity yields exclusion. The veneration of those traits is poison to young men. It offers an easy escape from the necessary struggle of self-reflection and replaces the work of interior discovery with a menu of prefabricated identities.
Here's the real mistake -- there's a pervasive cultural misunderstanding of the cultural tropes of our parents, thinking that they're somehow "toxic." In reality, they were dealing with life the same way that we always have been, and if you actually look at, say, 1950s Westerns, you'll see that the vast majority were not advocating any kind of arbitrary violence or will toward violent domination. That's all a naïve misunderstanding.
The slippery slope argument -- that celebrating any kind of strength as a virtue inevitably leads to corruption -- is ridiculous. The problem isn't "toxic masculinity" or "rape culture" or anything like that, it's simply the corruption of morally weak people, their losing a sense of what is right and what is noble, and their pervasive feeling of helplessness spurring them to act out.
I get the strong sense that articles like these end up contributing to that problem.
posted by phenylphenol at 4:03 AM on May 10, 2019
It’s to watch for the dogmas of masculinity taking root in myself each day, to acknowledge whatever virtues they contain and disavow the rest.
I think the unidimensional diagnosis of what's happening here -- being victimized by an apparently cruel and immoral person -- as being the result of culturally-constructed values of masculinity itself is simply callow.
Masculinity is a religion. It is a compendium of saints: the vaunted patriarch, the taciturn cowboy, the errant knight, reluctant hero, gentle giant and omniscient father. Like Scripture, each contains a story of implicit values. Fraternity, dominance, adamance, certitude — these are the commandments of male identity. Maybe in societies deep through history, those qualities helped organize a world of chaos, but the antediluvian constructs of masculinity are easily weaponized in modern life. The virtue of strength invites abuse. Adamance enables intransigence. Restraint devolves to disengagement, and fraternity yields exclusion. The veneration of those traits is poison to young men. It offers an easy escape from the necessary struggle of self-reflection and replaces the work of interior discovery with a menu of prefabricated identities.
Here's the real mistake -- there's a pervasive cultural misunderstanding of the cultural tropes of our parents, thinking that they're somehow "toxic." In reality, they were dealing with life the same way that we always have been, and if you actually look at, say, 1950s Westerns, you'll see that the vast majority were not advocating any kind of arbitrary violence or will toward violent domination. That's all a naïve misunderstanding.
The slippery slope argument -- that celebrating any kind of strength as a virtue inevitably leads to corruption -- is ridiculous. The problem isn't "toxic masculinity" or "rape culture" or anything like that, it's simply the corruption of morally weak people, their losing a sense of what is right and what is noble, and their pervasive feeling of helplessness spurring them to act out.
I get the strong sense that articles like these end up contributing to that problem.
posted by phenylphenol at 4:03 AM on May 10, 2019
And he's a shitty writer, to boot. What a pile of crap. Is the NYTimes so broke they can't afford an editor to turn this mess into something with clarity? This thing should never have been turned loose.
posted by dancestoblue at 4:06 AM on May 10, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by dancestoblue at 4:06 AM on May 10, 2019 [11 favorites]
I also felt it was pretty clear how the author was tying his shitty behavior and his veneration of his cousin to the twisted idea of what it means to be a man. The author is not defending himself--the whole essay is about what he did wrong. It feels like three is some projection going on in this discussion.
posted by Anonymous at 4:12 AM on May 10, 2019
posted by Anonymous at 4:12 AM on May 10, 2019
On further consideration, maybe the reason My Hylton is so afraid of people becoming corrupt, zombie-like avatars of masculine caricatures is because he's projecting his own moral depravity on others? I'm not blaming him at all, it's wonderful that he's so thoughtful, but I'm just trying to understand why people might end up thinking this way.
There's a real downward spiral associated with assuming other people are as morally weak as you currently feel. Having been in an abusive relationship in the past, I can state clearheadedly and with conviction that all it takes to enter that cycle is for one party to feel abused, and lash back out in retribution. Essentially, I lived through an enactment of the Karpman drama triangle because my partner adopted the "victim" role, and ended up perceiving me in wild swings as either "hero" or "persecutor." I should perhaps note that this person had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, bipolar, and borderline personality disorder at various points in her life. (I've had this take affirmed by many friends and my family, who tried doggedly to get me out of the situation, so I don't think I'm really mistaken here.) Maybe that's why I'm so attuned to the dangers of pessimistic or nihilistic thinking.
Anyway, I really wish Mr Hylton the best.
posted by phenylphenol at 4:47 AM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
There's a real downward spiral associated with assuming other people are as morally weak as you currently feel. Having been in an abusive relationship in the past, I can state clearheadedly and with conviction that all it takes to enter that cycle is for one party to feel abused, and lash back out in retribution. Essentially, I lived through an enactment of the Karpman drama triangle because my partner adopted the "victim" role, and ended up perceiving me in wild swings as either "hero" or "persecutor." I should perhaps note that this person had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, bipolar, and borderline personality disorder at various points in her life. (I've had this take affirmed by many friends and my family, who tried doggedly to get me out of the situation, so I don't think I'm really mistaken here.) Maybe that's why I'm so attuned to the dangers of pessimistic or nihilistic thinking.
Anyway, I really wish Mr Hylton the best.
posted by phenylphenol at 4:47 AM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
On a brighter note, Mr Hylton wrote a really compelling story about Breitbart and Bannon that seems completely level-headed, intelligent and informed.
posted by phenylphenol at 5:21 AM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by phenylphenol at 5:21 AM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm 30ish, and among people my own age I know folks who are one or several generations removed from the last abusive generation (i.e. at least their parents and sometimes even grandparents & beyond were able to raise kids in a healthy way), vs people like me who were raised by parents who were still actively abusive but who have committed to not perpetuating that onto the next generation (either by never having kids like I plan to, or by taking great pains to understand what healthy child-rearing looks like for their own families), vs people who were raised abusively and will inevitably perpetuate that onto their own kids because their particular family system isn't ready or able to break the trend right now.
Very interesting point. I'm also 30ish and this goes a long way towards explaining why articles like this sometimes feel like they are dispatches from an alien planet. You'd have to go back to my paternal grandmother's father to find the last man in my immediate family capable of committing violence against others, and even he apparently hired goons to do his dirty work. My grandmother dissociated herself from him as soon as she could, obtaining multiple degrees, and eventually marrying my grandfather, who was the kindest, gentlest, most wonderful man. I have lots of examples of good masculine role models in my family, and no one I know who was abusive. (This was all in India, but if anything, India has a worse toxic masculinity problem.) The fact that the author was able to ignore his cousin's violence for so long (beating up a little girl?? seriously?) and still be friendly with him is quite honestly really shocking to me. I hadn't realized that so many articulate people, capable of writing articles like this one, could also excuse violence at this level. I realize this makes me naive.
posted by peacheater at 5:30 AM on May 10, 2019 [10 favorites]
Very interesting point. I'm also 30ish and this goes a long way towards explaining why articles like this sometimes feel like they are dispatches from an alien planet. You'd have to go back to my paternal grandmother's father to find the last man in my immediate family capable of committing violence against others, and even he apparently hired goons to do his dirty work. My grandmother dissociated herself from him as soon as she could, obtaining multiple degrees, and eventually marrying my grandfather, who was the kindest, gentlest, most wonderful man. I have lots of examples of good masculine role models in my family, and no one I know who was abusive. (This was all in India, but if anything, India has a worse toxic masculinity problem.) The fact that the author was able to ignore his cousin's violence for so long (beating up a little girl?? seriously?) and still be friendly with him is quite honestly really shocking to me. I hadn't realized that so many articulate people, capable of writing articles like this one, could also excuse violence at this level. I realize this makes me naive.
posted by peacheater at 5:30 AM on May 10, 2019 [10 favorites]
I wonder what the writer thinks/wants/expects to happen in his family dynamics as a result of this essay. The parents have been exposed as toxic. The mother of his children has been characterized as lacking agency, her perspective excluded. The cousin could, in rage and shame, come after him, with firearms this time (which weren't taken away because gun culture), or whoever else in the family he thinks has betrayed him by sharing insights with the author. Various people in the family may now be processing the author's bisexuality for the first time. Many dynamics could change and he'll be the hub of it all.
Was that intentional? Did Hylton consider it? Is Hylton sending his cousin a message? Exacting further punishment? Blowing up the whole family? Hmmm.....
posted by carmicha at 5:57 AM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Was that intentional? Did Hylton consider it? Is Hylton sending his cousin a message? Exacting further punishment? Blowing up the whole family? Hmmm.....
posted by carmicha at 5:57 AM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
My eyebrows shot up when he wrote that he thought his cousin had just 'snapped'. Like playfully calling him away from his family and cornering him in a workshop with the door closed wasn't premeditation. His cousin knew exactly what he was going to do.
posted by um at 6:43 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by um at 6:43 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
I don't think the author deserves to have been beaten nearly to death, but it sure seems like he was okay with his cousin doing it to other people and his wife being scared of the cousin (and possibly by extension him -- was she worried that if they fought, cousin would find out and beat her up? Probably) and was doing that "so woke, so ally" stuff that vaguely lefty guys do to excuse the fact that they are neither at all. I'm glad he is beginning to process this, though I think the NYT was not the best first place.
posted by jeather at 6:49 AM on May 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by jeather at 6:49 AM on May 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
These men he dated ... he was trying to find a connection to new father figures? What is their relevance to the main thesis here? Does he feel like he ever found a model of positive, loving fatherhood? Or did he fail to find one; was that the reason he was so absent?
Am I really the only person wondering if his shame over homosexual feelings is causing him all this navel gazing and search for what it means to be masculine?
posted by Melismata at 8:32 AM on May 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
Am I really the only person wondering if his shame over homosexual feelings is causing him all this navel gazing and search for what it means to be masculine?
posted by Melismata at 8:32 AM on May 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
if his shame over homosexual feelings
You're not the only one wondering, and it's called internalized biphobia.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:38 AM on May 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
You're not the only one wondering, and it's called internalized biphobia.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:38 AM on May 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
The problem isn't "toxic masculinity" or "rape culture" or anything like that, it's simply the corruption of morally weak people, their losing a sense of what is right and what is noble, and their pervasive feeling of helplessness spurring them to act out.
I think it can be both. Moral corruption isn’t like a biological disease or fungal infection, that sadly takes hold of some people and not others for reasons that have nothing to do with culture. Culture shapes the forms of moral corruption that become pervasive, or not, in a given society. By and large, for example, the individual moral corruption involved in becoming a thief or a fraudster is more likely to happen in cultures that link maximising-personal-profit and personal status/worth and that don’t, for example, highly value virtues like self-restraint, charity and humility. (Cf Enron). Similarly, the individual moral corruption involved in becoming a violent person who beats up others is more likely to happen in cultures that link dominance displays and personal status/worth and that don’t, for example, highly value virtues like gentleness, kindness and emotional intelligence.
“Toxic masculinity”, as I understand it, isn’t about the association between masculinity and strength; it’s about the association between masculinity and dominance (particularly of women). All those Westerns about men who are casually willing to slap or rape uppity women, as well as kill men who insult them, have contributed to that association and that association contributes to a culture in which men get away with more violence and are not supported in turning away from violence. Not all men are violent; not all hedge fund managers are fraudsters. But men and hedge fund managers both inhabit cultures that unfortunately make them more susceptible to those forms of corruption, which is a good reason for challenging the cultures themselves.
posted by Aravis76 at 8:53 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
I think it can be both. Moral corruption isn’t like a biological disease or fungal infection, that sadly takes hold of some people and not others for reasons that have nothing to do with culture. Culture shapes the forms of moral corruption that become pervasive, or not, in a given society. By and large, for example, the individual moral corruption involved in becoming a thief or a fraudster is more likely to happen in cultures that link maximising-personal-profit and personal status/worth and that don’t, for example, highly value virtues like self-restraint, charity and humility. (Cf Enron). Similarly, the individual moral corruption involved in becoming a violent person who beats up others is more likely to happen in cultures that link dominance displays and personal status/worth and that don’t, for example, highly value virtues like gentleness, kindness and emotional intelligence.
“Toxic masculinity”, as I understand it, isn’t about the association between masculinity and strength; it’s about the association between masculinity and dominance (particularly of women). All those Westerns about men who are casually willing to slap or rape uppity women, as well as kill men who insult them, have contributed to that association and that association contributes to a culture in which men get away with more violence and are not supported in turning away from violence. Not all men are violent; not all hedge fund managers are fraudsters. But men and hedge fund managers both inhabit cultures that unfortunately make them more susceptible to those forms of corruption, which is a good reason for challenging the cultures themselves.
posted by Aravis76 at 8:53 AM on May 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
My eyebrows shot up when he wrote that he thought his cousin had just 'snapped'. Like playfully calling him away from his family and cornering him in a workshop with the door closed wasn't premeditation. His cousin knew exactly what he was going to do.
I’m not convinced of that. That the cousin wanted to get him alone to confront him, that I believe. But given the cousin’s other acts of spontaneous violence it’s not clear to me that he had a plan beyond that. If he had thought about it I’m sure he could have predicted how it would turn out, but he doesn’t seem like someone who thinks things through.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:50 AM on May 10, 2019
I’m not convinced of that. That the cousin wanted to get him alone to confront him, that I believe. But given the cousin’s other acts of spontaneous violence it’s not clear to me that he had a plan beyond that. If he had thought about it I’m sure he could have predicted how it would turn out, but he doesn’t seem like someone who thinks things through.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:50 AM on May 10, 2019
The author seems like a complete dick hellbent on blaming anyone but himself for the shit he cause in his wife and children's lives.
One specific moment that stuck out to me was that his cousin had tried to talk to him again about the assault he endured while enlisted, but the author was so caught up in using his cousin as his personal manhood the author shot him down.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:09 AM on May 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
One specific moment that stuck out to me was that his cousin had tried to talk to him again about the assault he endured while enlisted, but the author was so caught up in using his cousin as his personal manhood the author shot him down.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:09 AM on May 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
That the cousin wanted to get him alone to confront him, that I believe.
Beating him to the threshold of organ failure was the cousin's plan for 'confronting' him.
posted by um at 10:21 AM on May 10, 2019
Beating him to the threshold of organ failure was the cousin's plan for 'confronting' him.
posted by um at 10:21 AM on May 10, 2019
I know he was charged with a felony, first-degree assault and battery, and that he spent nearly two years in pretrial hearings before he finally pleaded guilty to second-degree assault. The judge released him on probation
Judge: Life without parole!
Cousin: But we were bros and I "just lost it."
Judge: Okay then probation.
posted by Gordion Knott at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Judge: Life without parole!
Cousin: But we were bros and I "just lost it."
Judge: Okay then probation.
posted by Gordion Knott at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Am I really the only person wondering if his shame over homosexual feelings is causing him all this navel gazing and search for what it means to be masculine?
Or that the period when he and the cousin were Skyping for hours on end, multiple days per week, while neglecting other responsibilities, had a kind of falling-in-love quality to
It? It had that vibe to me, like some kind of really strong chemistry that I associate in my own life with attraction.
posted by Orlop at 10:54 AM on May 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
Or that the period when he and the cousin were Skyping for hours on end, multiple days per week, while neglecting other responsibilities, had a kind of falling-in-love quality to
It? It had that vibe to me, like some kind of really strong chemistry that I associate in my own life with attraction.
posted by Orlop at 10:54 AM on May 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
my therapist taught me there's a difference between something someone deserves, and something that is a natural and logical consequence to behavior. It is natural and logical that the author would be subjected to violence since the author used a violent person for his own gains, including scaring his wife and endangering his family. The author chose to use a violent person, chose to be associated with that person, chose to endanger his family. The author was fully informed on the kind of person the cousin is. Does it mean he deserved to get beaten? of course not, no one does. Does it mean the author is a victim? As much as you can be a victim of your own doing
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:09 AM on May 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:09 AM on May 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
For what it's worth, i kind of regret my pithy veteran comment because there's a LOT more going on here and that really was kind of a footnote. I've just, personally, heard too many stories like this where someones behavior like this was excused because of that.
But honestly, the author was the first person excusing the terrible behavior here and it started long long before that.
posted by emptythought at 11:22 AM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
But honestly, the author was the first person excusing the terrible behavior here and it started long long before that.
posted by emptythought at 11:22 AM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
Honestly, having slept on reading this piece and reflected on men i've known like this throughout my life(both cousin, and author) i think i take an even dimmer view of the kind of men who think that this sort of shallow analysis and navel gazing is penance for their bad behavior and "crimes" of masculinity than i do of just the unapologetic assholes. Thinking you're fake woke enough to have something meaningful to say because you regret how it's affected your life and screwed up your trajectory.
I feel like there's been a huge rise in the popularity of these kinds of shallow, reflective, and just-self-effacing-enough monologues that don't dig enough to make a real point since being a Male Feminist Ally got really popular online.
This schlock exhausts me
posted by emptythought at 11:31 AM on May 10, 2019 [16 favorites]
I feel like there's been a huge rise in the popularity of these kinds of shallow, reflective, and just-self-effacing-enough monologues that don't dig enough to make a real point since being a Male Feminist Ally got really popular online.
This schlock exhausts me
posted by emptythought at 11:31 AM on May 10, 2019 [16 favorites]
if you actually look at, say, 1950s Westerns, you'll see that the vast majority were not advocating any kind of arbitrary violence or will toward violent domination
On the contrary, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many Westerns of any era where such is not simply built in structurally. You know, because that land was violently stolen from civilians who were massacred from time to time. The claim (often a background assumption) to a right to "westward expansion" or "Manifest Destiny" or "settlement" incorporates arbitrary violence and will towards violent domination.
posted by praemunire at 11:33 AM on May 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
On the contrary, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many Westerns of any era where such is not simply built in structurally. You know, because that land was violently stolen from civilians who were massacred from time to time. The claim (often a background assumption) to a right to "westward expansion" or "Manifest Destiny" or "settlement" incorporates arbitrary violence and will towards violent domination.
posted by praemunire at 11:33 AM on May 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
Anyone else notice how the cop in the hospital didn't believe the author of this piece hadn't done something to provoke the cousin: they sneered with certainty that no one gets beaten half to death for no reason. That's fucked up.
This set off alarms for me, mostly because it honestly comes across as a man who's incredulous that his story isn't immediately taken at face value and acted on in a way where he feels seen and heard.
That is your display of internalized toxic masculinity: The incredulity that anyone has the temerity to not act on whatever flies out of that man's mouth, no further proof or fact-checking needed. He said it, ergo it's right. Why aren't you doing what he wants?
Maybe the cop did "sneer" (and note how the author used that word; he clearly meant to connote a type of undeserved dismissiveness) or maybe the cop was neutral and thus his demeanor translated as unfairly dismissive to someone who is used to having his word unquestioned.
Whatever really happened, how the author chose to write about the experience shows something about the toxic masculinity he's still carrying in how he expects others to behave in response to his wants.
posted by sobell at 11:33 AM on May 10, 2019 [13 favorites]
This set off alarms for me, mostly because it honestly comes across as a man who's incredulous that his story isn't immediately taken at face value and acted on in a way where he feels seen and heard.
That is your display of internalized toxic masculinity: The incredulity that anyone has the temerity to not act on whatever flies out of that man's mouth, no further proof or fact-checking needed. He said it, ergo it's right. Why aren't you doing what he wants?
Maybe the cop did "sneer" (and note how the author used that word; he clearly meant to connote a type of undeserved dismissiveness) or maybe the cop was neutral and thus his demeanor translated as unfairly dismissive to someone who is used to having his word unquestioned.
Whatever really happened, how the author chose to write about the experience shows something about the toxic masculinity he's still carrying in how he expects others to behave in response to his wants.
posted by sobell at 11:33 AM on May 10, 2019 [13 favorites]
just-self-effacing-enough monologues that don't dig enough to make a real point since being a Male Feminist Ally got really popular online.
The real work author needs to do is with his ex-wife and his kids and any other women in his life in the future, on a day to day basis, offline. That's not going to be visible to us in any trustworthy way. Is he doing it? I don't know. None of us know. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't, but I wouldn't assume he wasn't.
posted by praemunire at 11:34 AM on May 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
The real work author needs to do is with his ex-wife and his kids and any other women in his life in the future, on a day to day basis, offline. That's not going to be visible to us in any trustworthy way. Is he doing it? I don't know. None of us know. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't, but I wouldn't assume he wasn't.
posted by praemunire at 11:34 AM on May 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
It's definitely about taking apart his own attitudes towards masculinity, not his cousin's. It's just - his infatuation with this guy seems like a reflection of a particular and unusual compulsion on his part. It's not something that makes me think - that reminds me of a lot of guys I know.
Though I certainly have run into guys who have a thing about - "I may not be a tough guy, but my [family member] is, so watch out!" I just tend to assume that's pretty empty posturing in the majority of cases.
posted by atoxyl at 12:13 PM on May 10, 2019
Though I certainly have run into guys who have a thing about - "I may not be a tough guy, but my [family member] is, so watch out!" I just tend to assume that's pretty empty posturing in the majority of cases.
posted by atoxyl at 12:13 PM on May 10, 2019
I loved the shelter of his violence. It gave him the power to make wrong right.
I think this is the sole piece of gold in this article and it was fully glossed over and passed on by the author.
This is the reason why abuse prevails. This is why kids are friends with bullies at school, this is why friends and family stand by domestic abusers, this is why hr doesn't work in toxic workplaces, this is the alpha guy in a bro culture group, this is why women stay.
I really think he missed a good opportunity here.
posted by OnefortheLast at 12:43 PM on May 10, 2019 [18 favorites]
I think this is the sole piece of gold in this article and it was fully glossed over and passed on by the author.
This is the reason why abuse prevails. This is why kids are friends with bullies at school, this is why friends and family stand by domestic abusers, this is why hr doesn't work in toxic workplaces, this is the alpha guy in a bro culture group, this is why women stay.
I really think he missed a good opportunity here.
posted by OnefortheLast at 12:43 PM on May 10, 2019 [18 favorites]
I loved the shelter of his violence. It gave him the power to make wrong right.
It's why a lot of people voted for the current president.
posted by praemunire at 2:22 PM on May 10, 2019 [10 favorites]
It's why a lot of people voted for the current president.
posted by praemunire at 2:22 PM on May 10, 2019 [10 favorites]
I loved the shelter of his violence. It gave him the power to make wrong right.
But how much of this feeling comes from being repeatedly wronged by the parental violence he was experiencing? People are very often trying to get "paid back" in one area of life when they feel they're being wronged/deprived/misused in another, and "I deserve to be protected by a strong man because there's this other strong man who abuses me" seems like a pretty likely thought pattern.
I feel like in situations where people are writing their "What Went Wrong: My Life" stuff it's actually difficult to judge them morally about the evaluation itself, because they're obviously in a state of flux. It takes a lot of thinking and processing to go from "I guess I fucked up, here are some poorly considered reasons why" to "I fucked up, here is my well-considered evaluation and here is what I did afterward" and I guess I'd give someone longer than three years to get to the latter point when they're talking about a life of intertwined fuck-ups and abuse followed by being beaten almost to death out of the blue by a loved relative followed by a prolonged court case*. Like, I would put a lot more weight on what he thinks about this chain of events in five or ten years and what he's done at that point.
I'm not saying we can't make evaluative statements about specific actions - like, it was bizarrely thoughtless and entitled to treat his wife the way he did, it was crazy creepy and bad to accept it as his due when his cousin pulled a gun on their friend, etc - but I'm not quite ready to evaluate the evaluation.
*Let me tell you, prolonged court cases can really fuck you up in themselves, even when you are on the right/innocent/winning side.
posted by Frowner at 2:34 PM on May 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
But how much of this feeling comes from being repeatedly wronged by the parental violence he was experiencing? People are very often trying to get "paid back" in one area of life when they feel they're being wronged/deprived/misused in another, and "I deserve to be protected by a strong man because there's this other strong man who abuses me" seems like a pretty likely thought pattern.
I feel like in situations where people are writing their "What Went Wrong: My Life" stuff it's actually difficult to judge them morally about the evaluation itself, because they're obviously in a state of flux. It takes a lot of thinking and processing to go from "I guess I fucked up, here are some poorly considered reasons why" to "I fucked up, here is my well-considered evaluation and here is what I did afterward" and I guess I'd give someone longer than three years to get to the latter point when they're talking about a life of intertwined fuck-ups and abuse followed by being beaten almost to death out of the blue by a loved relative followed by a prolonged court case*. Like, I would put a lot more weight on what he thinks about this chain of events in five or ten years and what he's done at that point.
I'm not saying we can't make evaluative statements about specific actions - like, it was bizarrely thoughtless and entitled to treat his wife the way he did, it was crazy creepy and bad to accept it as his due when his cousin pulled a gun on their friend, etc - but I'm not quite ready to evaluate the evaluation.
*Let me tell you, prolonged court cases can really fuck you up in themselves, even when you are on the right/innocent/winning side.
posted by Frowner at 2:34 PM on May 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
(Not "crazy" creepy. "Wildly creepy", "super creepy", etc. Sorry about the ableist language.)
posted by Frowner at 2:41 PM on May 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 2:41 PM on May 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
The subtitle of the article promises an explanation for how toxic masculinity caused his cousin’s attack and it never really delivers.
In one way, it seems to me almost that the author isn't saying, "I don't know why my cousin tried to kill me," so much as he's really saying, "how could my cousin do this to me, we we're bros,"
But my immediate response to how toxic masculinity caused this would be, "because you didn't trust or respect or listen to your own wife's judgement or input on that person to begin with."
posted by OnefortheLast at 4:54 PM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
In one way, it seems to me almost that the author isn't saying, "I don't know why my cousin tried to kill me," so much as he's really saying, "how could my cousin do this to me, we we're bros,"
But my immediate response to how toxic masculinity caused this would be, "because you didn't trust or respect or listen to your own wife's judgement or input on that person to begin with."
posted by OnefortheLast at 4:54 PM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
I’ve also learned that he was taking supplements of testosterone to help with a back injury.
This seems fairly relevant to the cousin’s paranoid and psychotic symptoms, and I’m a weirded out that the author meanders off into wondering if it’s fair to blame the “male hormone” or maleness in general for his cousin’s hallucinations and violence when steroid psychosis is an extremely real and documented thing. There’s a lot to be said about steroid abuse and toxic masculinity, but the effects he seems to be describing, an already disturbed and psychopathic guy taking supplements and spiraling into a kind of paranoia with hallucination symptoms they’d never exhibited before, is a really common thing, not some unknowable condition of manly men or “”he isn't schizophrenic” or “he just snapped.” Like other people have said upthread, Hylton really doesn’t seem to know what he’s writing about here, like he’s still deep in the denial+romanticization mentality he’s always had about his cousin’s violence.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 3:00 AM on May 11, 2019 [8 favorites]
This seems fairly relevant to the cousin’s paranoid and psychotic symptoms, and I’m a weirded out that the author meanders off into wondering if it’s fair to blame the “male hormone” or maleness in general for his cousin’s hallucinations and violence when steroid psychosis is an extremely real and documented thing. There’s a lot to be said about steroid abuse and toxic masculinity, but the effects he seems to be describing, an already disturbed and psychopathic guy taking supplements and spiraling into a kind of paranoia with hallucination symptoms they’d never exhibited before, is a really common thing, not some unknowable condition of manly men or “”he isn't schizophrenic” or “he just snapped.” Like other people have said upthread, Hylton really doesn’t seem to know what he’s writing about here, like he’s still deep in the denial+romanticization mentality he’s always had about his cousin’s violence.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 3:00 AM on May 11, 2019 [8 favorites]
I say that we had been planning for months to get together that weekend. We organized a family reunion at his house. My son and I were staying in his guest room, while a swarm of aunts and uncles and cousins spilled into a nearby hotel. I had spent the day with them, watching our kids play in the hotel pool, and everyone was planning to gather at my cousin’s house for a party that evening. I say that none of our relatives knew there was conflict between my cousin and me. Neither did I, and neither did he. There was no sign of anything wrong until he tried to kill me.
When I say this, I know it doesn’t make sense.
For me, the part of this story that's relevant and relatable is that here is a person with a violent history that all these people have to be at least somewhat aware of. People with kids that they are leaving around him, if not indeed in his care. (I am pretty sure those last words would have been used if he had been a woman, but since he's a man he's just on the same premises.) And they have enabled him all along, apparently continue to. It's bizarre that he was treated so leniently by the legal system, even when you allow for white privilege and probably some class and economic privilege too. But no one except the author seems to think that. This guy been normalized by friends and family. I think that's what toxic masculinity is about. Not this or that destructive behavior at this or that point on the spectrum of violence, but the stories people tell to integrate this sort of thing into their lives.
I found the article frustrating and, yes, I would love to hear the author's ex-wife's perspective. But something clicked for me, perhaps due to the curiously unfiltered quality of the writing. Which, I don't know, may be a carefully calculated pose. There is a line to be drawn between the way the author seems to have slipped into a relationship model where his wife was completely powerless, and the way the behavior of men in the family was apparently normal until the police were called.
posted by BibiRose at 6:36 AM on May 12, 2019 [5 favorites]
When I say this, I know it doesn’t make sense.
For me, the part of this story that's relevant and relatable is that here is a person with a violent history that all these people have to be at least somewhat aware of. People with kids that they are leaving around him, if not indeed in his care. (I am pretty sure those last words would have been used if he had been a woman, but since he's a man he's just on the same premises.) And they have enabled him all along, apparently continue to. It's bizarre that he was treated so leniently by the legal system, even when you allow for white privilege and probably some class and economic privilege too. But no one except the author seems to think that. This guy been normalized by friends and family. I think that's what toxic masculinity is about. Not this or that destructive behavior at this or that point on the spectrum of violence, but the stories people tell to integrate this sort of thing into their lives.
I found the article frustrating and, yes, I would love to hear the author's ex-wife's perspective. But something clicked for me, perhaps due to the curiously unfiltered quality of the writing. Which, I don't know, may be a carefully calculated pose. There is a line to be drawn between the way the author seems to have slipped into a relationship model where his wife was completely powerless, and the way the behavior of men in the family was apparently normal until the police were called.
posted by BibiRose at 6:36 AM on May 12, 2019 [5 favorites]
I found this story compelling and honest, two qualities I've always admired in Hylton's writing. But this one cuts to the bone because of the violence and because it's his personal story. And I viewed it as therapy, to some degree: It's raw and messy ... there is no pat ending. But I commend him for telling this story and confronting some unsettling truths about masculinity in our society, and about his own life. I imagine that if I were beaten and battered by a family member, I too would try to make sense of it within the larger panorama of my life, so I was not at all surprised by the extent to which he reflected on his recently failed marriage. And, doubtless, some of my conclusions and ramblings would not be crystal-clear nor to the public's liking, as making sense of it all would probably take years. I hope he will publish a follow-up five or ten years from now.
posted by KBliz at 12:36 PM on May 15, 2019
posted by KBliz at 12:36 PM on May 15, 2019
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not everybody gets those bad ideas literally beaten out of them before they spread it to their sons etc
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:45 PM on May 9, 2019 [40 favorites]