There’s a meme that’s circulated where a character representing an impressionable young male is presented with a diverging path and the choices are “Mommy Issues” (as represented by Jordan Peterson) and “Daddy Issues” (as represented by Andrew Tate.) The joke being that the character isn’t willing to confront their resentments directly and is instead latching onto a worldview that manifests that psychological insecurity. The grain of truth here, and why it works, is the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons of the world represent two competing, and utterly dundering, visions of male identity, in a timeline that is producing increasingly reactionary fever dreams of what it means to be heteronormative and male. Certainly the world is increasingly expanding in terms of acknowledging and accepting gender identity; that being confident in one’s ‘dudeitude’ is somehow directly at odds with this is a sad position that reeks of insecurity.
Charlatans and mountebanks, the lot of them. They are the cocaine high of simple platitudes and unyielding machismo offering a cheap fix instead of the self-effacing discipline and intellectual curiosity that lead to the flourishment of real character. There is a great deal that can (and has) been written about the amount by which money behind the ultra-nationalist far right promotes these false icons as gateways to more extremist ideology. But I would also argue that there is also another reason why these frauds continue to suck all the oxygen out of the room with their hastily assembled catechisms – superficially, they represent stability and confidence to a demographic desperately seeking to find and integrate those values in their own selves.
If you are wondering why we find ourselves at a juncture in time in which these false teachers seem to blossom like discarded fast food wrappers on the side of a highway, I can point to a very clear cultural moment that shifted when we started insisting people were not role models, that their statements and behavior are theirs alone. This dangerously flawed idea supposes that people and their actions exist in some kind of hermetically sealed environment where their daily actions do not have larger consequences, not just for those around them but also the broader world. Our choices are always being reflected by those around us, daily – that never stopped happening and it’s patently absurd to assert otherwise.
The truth is life is a game, but too many people are focused on playing the wrong game. If anything it feels like they’re re-enacting GTA, seeing just how much they can run amok, smash and grab, and antagonize people with no concern for the consequences of their actions (at the very least, anecdotally, it’s seemingly made people worse drivers.) A much more accurate (if ancient) gaming model for daily life is Frogger, through no fault of our own we find ourselves in a world that is dangerous, technologically crammed, and overwhelming with distractions, we seek only to find our way to happiness and security - we only need to find rhythm and patience to plot a course through. Another game I think about often is Mario Kart, even if you play single-player, it was ingeniously designed so that you could see a ghost-car of your own best time. I think we go through our daily life, seeking to do as well as our best days; sometimes we do better, sometimes we do worse, but if you are mindful, you can see your own mistakes and learn to do better.
In case you feel like I’ve been veering dangerously off-course babbling about video games like someone driving Rainbow Road in reverse, the last point I wanted to make is there is a very old concept frequently seen in video games of play-based learning. By watching one person, the next person can pick up on what works and what doesn’t. Practically nothing we do happens in isolation. We are setting examples every day around us – the choice you get to make is whether you engage and really focus on results, or do lousy and throw the controller in disgust.