Apathy, Angst, and Aldi: What is a modern man and is he important?

What is a man? What has he got?

Hot take, bitches: the male identity crisis is nothing new. Emile Durkheim was wringing his hands and bewailing the fate of the trusty ploughman in a capitalist world, long before anyone ever said ‘toxic masculinity’ or ‘queer theory’. But all the hysteria does raise an interesting question: what is a man in a post patriarchal world? Is masculinity still necessary? And is this identity crisis justified?

I’ll split this up into five mini sections so we don’t die of boredom. You aren’t getting graded for reading this ahead of the seminar, anyway.

Trapped in a classist capitalist world where they have no value?

The Man As Financial

A man, in 2023, should be rich. We all admire wealth. We idolise billionaires, fawn over assets we wish we had, and fantasise about that power, that freedom, that success. To not be rich, in our classist faux meritocracy, is to be stupid, to be weak, to be lazy, to be a failure, and to be inconsequential. Emasculated.