Comment by ookdatnog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ookdatnog | Hacker News Reader

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> Agree that feminists and modern women aspiring to adopt male traits rather than embracing innate female goddess energy and power is stupid

"Agree that"? What are you on about? The parent comment can't remotely be interpreted to be saying this.

> ... especially when they, at the same time, "stand against" how "toxic" men are.

The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply "masculinity = toxic".

Rather, our culture associates certain (often positive) traits with what it means to "be a (real) man", such as strength, protectiveness, ambition, decisiveness, confidence, courage etc.

"Toxic masculinity" is the cancerous behavior you get when men overshoot in trying to display these qualities, such as authoritarian behavior stemming from an obsession with being perceived as strong; being incapable of letting others shine due to seeing everything as a zero-sum competition; being unreasonably stubborn and unwilling to change their mind out of a desire to be perceived as decisive and confident; pointless risk-seeking behavior potentially putting others at risk etc.

> The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply "masculinity = toxic".

It totally does though, whether that's the intention or not. If I talk about "greedy Frenchmen", that technically just means, the (perhaps tiny) subset of Frenchmen who are greedy, but in practice, through a quirk of language, it also communicates an idea about Frenchmen being greedy.

Hopefully, "greedy Frenchmen" is not an expression that pushes anybody's buttons too much, but I think most people will be able to think of comparable "[Adjective] [Noun]" examples that illustrate the problem more vividly.

I agree that the phrase "greedy Frenchmen" can only be reasonably interpreted as the speaker believing it is typical for Frenchmen to be greedy.

But contrast another phrase of the same pattern, say, "fundamentalist Christians". I don't think anyone reasonable would interpret this as saying "fundamentalists, as is typical for Christians" (it could depend on the speaker though). Instead, this phrase would be broadly recognized as selecting the fundamentalist subset of the set of Christians (most of whom are understood not to be fundamentalists).

The difference between these two phrases is that in the first case, the two properties being discussed (being greedy and being French) don't really inform one another. There is no broadly understood "typically French way" of being greedy (afaik). So by putting these two properties in proximity, the speaker tries to construct the association. In the second case, the properties (being fundamentalist and being Christian) do inform one another. If you'd get both pieces of data separately, the meaning is different: a person might be Christian and fundamentalist about something other than Christianity. So the phrase "he is a Christian fundamentalist" is more informative than just getting these two pieces of information apart, since Christian fundamentalism is a somewhat specific set of beliefs.

So you only argue why it is linguistically possible for phrases of the pattern "<adjective> <noun>" to be interpreted as "<noun>s are typically <adjective>", but you don't argue for why this must be the case for "toxic masculinity".

And it seems quite clear to me that the phrase "toxic masculinity" is in this regard a lot closer to "fundamentalist Christians" than to "greedy Frenchmen". There is a qualitative difference between being told "his displays toxically masculine behavior" and the two separate pieces of information "he is masculine" and "he is toxic"; this is because there are many ways to be toxic, and the phrase "toxic masculinity" asserts that there is a certain type of toxicity that arises from trying to be perceived as very masculine.

> I agree that the phrase "greedy Frenchmen" can only be reasonably interpreted as the speaker believing it is typical for Frenchmen to be greedy.

That isn't agreeing with me! My point was that both meanings are expressed by the phrase. I also think the phrase "fundamentalist Christians" does (in practice) contain an message about Christians, as well as acting as a qualifier that excludes many of them. I'm entirely not a Christian, but I imagine if I was, I might well not read it and think "Well they said fundamentalist Christians so they definitely don't mean me..."

If we want to get language lawyery about it, the meaning where the adjective acts as a qualifier is technically correct, and I would love it if everybody could agree that's what matters and read carefully and charitably, but that is not how things work in this universe. In practice, a bit of care and empathy is required if you don't want to offend people.

> That isn't agreeing with me! My point was that both meanings are expressed by the phrase.

Apologies. I disagree with that then. I think it's quite safe to assume that if someone uses the phrase "greedy Frenchmen", that in almost all contexts they are trying to create or reinforce an association between being greedy and being French.

In that specific example, the technical meaning of the phrase has become irrelevant, as the juxtaposition of these two unrelated facts about the subject immediately raises questions about the motive of the speaker.

To understand your perspective better: I think you want people to stop using the term "toxic masculinity", out of a commendable sense of care and empathy. And I think we all intuitively feel that there's something wrong with phrases like "greedy Frenchmen". But do you think in the same vein that the phrase "fundamentalist Christians" is insensitive/offensive and to be avoided? What language would you use if you wanted to talk about the fundamentalist subset of Christians?

(From my PoV, "toxic masculinity" is like "fundamentalist Christians": there is no pressing reason (unlike with the phrase "greedy Frenchmen") to interpret it as an association, and I find it bewildering and unreasonable if a partner in conversation jumps to that conclusion, rather than interpreting it as subset selection. As such, I don't see a problem with either one. So I'm trying to figure out: do you think "toxic masculinity" should be avoided because you also believe that "fundamentalist Christians" should be avoided, or because you think it is more similar to "greedy Frenchmen"?)

Surely there's a sense in which the precise meaning of "greedy Frenchmen" still exists? It's obviously a bit difficult to discuss without context, but entirely discarding the accurate meaning based on there being "questions about the motive of the speaker" seems, I dunno, hasty? "I helped my uncle jack off a horse" still has two meanings, even though only one of them is the punchline.

My point, linguistically, is just that "<adjective> <group>" paradoxically both qualifies "<group>" and also links "<adjective>" and "<group>". I think that is just how language works, (I'm admittedly not a proper linguist and kind of freestyling). I think that's true of "greedy Frenchmen", "fundamentalist Christians", "fundamentalist Muslims", "toxic masculinity", "gold-digging women", and, well, just in general.

Whether it matters, whether you care, and what you want to do about it, are separate questions. But I think it's useful to understand that language functions that way, whether you like it or not. I don't think these phrases should be verboten, but I do think it's good to understand what it is you're communicating. Even if what's being understood is not what you intended when you transmitted it, I think communication entails a responsibility for the speaker to consider the impact of their speech on the listener.

Completely honestly I'm a bit bewildered by your bewilderment. While it's obviously a huge, toxic rabbit hole and I don't really want to go there, I think perhaps you're not appreciating that people have genuine sensitivities about things you presumably don't. Maybe if I put it like this: There are contexts in which "toxic masculinity" or "fundamentalist Christians" aren't going to land well, and some people spend a lot of time in those contexts.

> My point, linguistically, is just that "<adjective> <group>" paradoxically both qualifies "<group>" and also links "<adjective>" and "<group>".

I think that's broadly speaking correct. The point I made in my first reply to you was that I don't think this happens to the same extent for every word combination. Among other things the degree of linkage seems to me to be inversely correlated to the degree to which your adjective and group inform one another.

That is, to be clear, an attempt by me to put into words why I intuitively feel the phrase "greedy Frenchmen" is strongly dominated by linkage, whereas "fundamentalist Christians" is not. I cannot prove this. But I don't think I'm an insulated case here: I've never seen anyone being called out for being insensitive by using the phrase "fundamentalist Christians"; I have seen it for phrases like "greedy Frenchmen" and, in this very thread, "toxic masculinity".

Nevertheless, even though I might not fully understand a certain sensitivity, I'm happy to adapt my language to be less prone to misinterpretation. But I'm curious whether you have any workable suggestions. If you want to talk about the fundamentalist subset of Christians, what phrasing would you use that avoids offending people?

I'm not necessarily claiming to have better ideas! I think it's really hard, and the internet has made it very hard to second guess the context in which your messages will be received.

* It's usually best to go with something more tailored and thoughtful, and avoid politically charged clichés if you can. For me, this is the real reason "greedy Frenchmen" seems innocuous and the other examples seem problematic.

* A low-effort hack that sometimes softens things a bit is prefixing with "some" and / or suffixing with "people" ("some Christian fundamentalist people...").

* You don't have to live in constant fear of offending people, maybe sometimes you can just say what you want to say and hope your audience doesn't take it the wrong way. I don't want to overstate my concern for Christian sensitivities. Your chances of avoiding offence are obviously dependent on the context and your audience.

Again, I'm not necessarily saying I'm good at this! I think I'm better than I used to be, which is an extremely low bar.

> The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply "masculinity = toxic".

It totally does, this is why those two words are used in that expression. The plan is to skew the meaning of masculinity by making the colloquation widely used enough, until it's automatically associated with toxicity even when that word is not present.

> this is why those two words are used in that expression

Do you believe that every "<adjective> <noun>" phrase is intended as "<noun> = <adjective>"? Do you believe that the phrase "fundamentalist Christians" is only used by people who want to create the association "all Christians are fundamentalists"?

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