Thread by @drvolts

This episode of @yourewrongabout is typically good, but what most fascinated/horrified me, what I can't stop thinking about, is the description of the Citadel itself. It's a "military college" in South Carolina -- with no actual ties to the military. podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6L…

Meaning, in other words, it's a military *cosplay* college. Does it teach military skills & discipline? No. It appears to exist purely to replicate the Southern "honor culture" -- an authoritarian culture based on dominance & toxic masculinity.

This was especially true back in the 70s/80s, before some mild reforms were forced on it. There was a scandal a while back when it was revealed that freshmen were beaten & humiliated, often sexually, as part of "hazing."

Hazing, at the Citadel & elsewhere, has since become less overtly violent, but the purpose remains the same: to imprint on these young men that society is a hierarchy, that you kiss upward & shit downward, & that manhood is being in top, being allowed to dispense violence.

That's what *everything* in "honor culture" is about, not just the beatings but everything you learn & do in these contexts. Accept emotional & physical abuse from those above you; dish it out to those below you. That's life. And if you're toward the bottom of the hierarchy?

Well then you always have a wife & kids at home who are "below" you, upon whom you can pour your inarticulate rage & resentment. Men in this culture are deeply unhappy, which is why it's so easy to turn them against immigrants, minorities, libs, etc. -- they desperately need...

... someone weak to blame, to punish. It's the only way they know to feel better about themselves, to grasp some sense of control. It never lasts, though. There's never enough cruelty or domination to fill that hole.

Anyway, the Citadel is notable not for being different, but just for being so *explicit* about the culture it's transmitting. The people who benefit from that culture are deeply aware that it must be constantly reinforced. That's why they resisted admitting women for so long.

This is a good thread about the kind of broken men that this culture produces.

https://twitter.com/RemakingManhood/status/1353397024905961475

Lindsey Graham is such a perfect illustration of this culture. It was imprinted upon him at an early age that life is a hierarchy, that you dominate or are dominated. He'll never be an alpha & he knows it, so his life has been devoted to finding alphas & licking their boots.

If you could psychoanalyze every Trump lieutenant & hanger-on, this is what you'd find: a deeply authoritarian/hierarchical worldview. You find the top dog & attach yourself to him. He might be cruel to you, but your reward is you get to be cruel to those beneath you.