“We live in a society!” has become the slogan for every 16 year old realizing that they live in a specific culture that shapes how they think.1 In the last few years it’s become the catchphrase for a person intending to sound more intelligent than the unthinking masses. This often backfires, making them look like an idiot just trying to sound deep2. And yet, it’s not exactly wrong. You do live in a society that shapes how you think you should live your life.3
In this essay I’m going to talk about the inner prison warden of masculinity, the Kathekon, who speaks in your mind, telling you to abide by the rules of your culture. The Ancient Stoics defined Kathekon as “proper' conduct, in the sense of being in accordance with the 'decorum' of society, which can be expected from everyone.”4 The Kathekon then, is the whole body of social norms, rules, and regulations that we’re all meant to follow if we want to fit in with our society as men.
The process where we learn all of this stuff is called socialization. At the end of it, we are what developmental psychologists call “Conformist”.5 Here, we live our lives according to the external compass given to us by our parents, our peers, our teachers, and the media. They all give us a script about who we have to be and what kind of life we have to live, and we believe it to be the “natural way of things”. Everyone goes to grade school, high school, parties too much in college, gets a wife, has some kids, and then you judge how well they do the exact same thing until you die.
Even saying that has me cringe a little bit because it’s cliché to criticize this standard life narrative we all live. Everyone already knows about Tyler Durden’s famous anti-conformity rant, “Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.”6 There’s no longer any real bite to that. And in fact, it’s actually come full circle with “counter-cultural” icons like Jordan Peterson telling young men to take responsibility and to stand up straight.7
“In a society” where being revolutionary means fulfilling your social role with pride, what does “social role” actually mean and how are we supposed to live it?
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Kathekon is the Colour of Masculinity
One of the difficulties of this channel is that I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing the current masculine conformity. I know we hear people ragging about “toxic masculinity” all the time and saying that masculinity is the cause of all the world’s problems. I disagree. I don’t think masculinity itself is a problem. However, there are both virtuous and toxic elements to masculinity. And so, I think as men we need a positive vision of masculinity precisely because of all of the toxic falsehoods we’ve been peddled about what it should be.
As I argued in my essay, “Psychology of the MetaMasculine,” one way we have been taught to think about masculinity is that it is NOT femininity. If you say that something is feminine, then as a man you shouldn’t be that thing. Realize however, that this is a limiting belief. It is a belief about how you should be as a man that limits your full potential because it prevents you from doing certain things. It is quite literally putting limits on you, for no other reason than that you are a man.
For example, you are told that women are nurturing and people-oriented, whereas men are tough and thing-oriented.8 Men and women do tend to be different in these ways, but not as much as these narratives try to convince us.9 If men truly aren’t nurturing IN ANY WAY…well that means you can’t be nurturing toward yourself or others, and you can’t turn to people for help, advice, or emotional support.
So please, if you’re a real man – close this essay, never educate yourself ever again, and certainly never talk to someone about your problems because obviously that would be “dependent” and only women are “dependent”…right?
What is that if not a limiting belief that has been defined as “masculine”?
I’m going to show you a video that many of you have likely already seen, but I want you to watch it very carefully and listen closely to the messages embedded within it.
Notice how the first thing he says is “Hello ladies,” and yet the target market for the commercial itself is men. He’s not talking to women. He’s talking to men. He is telling the men watching from the very first line that if they want a woman’s attention, then they better listen closely to what he says next. If you read my last essay, “Psychology of the Chained Vortex,” you can already see how this plays into someone’s vortex, into someone’s painful emotions. If they feel insecure about women they are going to be triggered emotionally to pay close attention to what he’s saying.
He then tells the “ladies” to look at their man, and then to look back to him. If he were to say, “hey men, look at yourself, now look back to me,” most men would think, “yeah fuck off.” The fact that he’s speaking to the “ladies” means that any man watching will not be thinking about what the Old Spice man thinks of him, but about how the ladies will compare either of them.
The Old Spice man is a literal model. Even attractive men will compare themselves negatively to him, let alone the average man. Again, this stimulates his own vortex of negative emotion, making him feel insecure, inadequate, and ashamed of himself. If he’s a bit overweight he’ll focus on the model’s muscle and think less of himself.
Not to mention the phrase, “but if he stopped using ladies-scented bodywash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me.” This sets up a comparison between feminine as less than ideal, and you as less than this man and therefore feminine relative to him, but you’ll at least…smell like him?
The commercial then goes through a series of images and spoken lines that associate this “pinnacle of masculinity” with wealth, confidence, power, and adventure. Obviously the point of the commercial is to sell Old Spice, but behind that superficial message we are learning that being a pinnacle man means being rich enough to afford a yacht, expensive diamonds, and a horse.
This may seem a little much, but before I continue, remember that I personally watched this commercial when I was under the age of 14. We have evidence that adult men are affected by these kinds of commercials, but that kids are even more susceptible to them.10, 11, 12 Given these findings is it so strange to think that these kinds of commercials can affect our mind and worldview? If you’re exposed to this kind of advertising from childhood you simply don’t question it.
So, point being, this commercial keeps you chained to a vortex of negative emotions by your self-comparison with this “pinnacle of a man”. You simply feel ashamed for not measuring up or perhaps you’re resentful of women because they wouldn’t like a guy like you.
This commercial defines the pinnacle man based on muscularity, social status, and wealth, but then tells us we can attain this level of successful masculinity…by buying their product. We are left ashamed with only three solutions – give up and be a “beta” male, learn how to be a “pinnacle man,” or buy their product.
This is a false trichotomy. You are given three options and are told that they are your only options. Notice how this aligns with what I said before about how limiting beliefs limit your potential by preventing you from doing certain things, or forcing you to choose between a limited number of options.
So, do you want to be beta and give up? Well no obviously not. Do you really think that buying their product is a good solution? Many men actually do, but you likely see how bullshit that is. That means that the only remaining option is to become a pinnacle man. That’s a great option because you’re not a victim. You can go out and improve your social and dating skillset. You can educate yourself more and become more valuable to society so that you can deserve more money from the marketplace. You can go to the gym and become more physically fit. These are all possible options for you to take and they are incredibly inspiring and empowering.
And yet…notice how this narrative of empowerment never once questions whether that is actually a “pinnacle man.” Notice how you are told that this is what a “real man” actually is, and that these are the only goals a “real man” should aspire to. The primary reason you believe that is because you were told this is what women want – “hello ladies.”
Do you even question if he’s actually what women want, or better yet, the only kind of man they would ever want? With one stupid commercial that is actually kind of funny you are given an entire vision of masculinity and are convinced to work to attain it. Again, remember from my last essay, the lessons you were given as you were going through your childhood chain you to a specific vortex of negative emotion. You’re then told that if you conform to this vision of masculinity, you’ll gain the approval of women. You’re chained to negative emotions by certain social norms and are given sex as a carrot to chase after.
The fact that it was a stupid Old Spice commercial is actually what makes it even more powerful because you’re lulled into a false sense of security. You can reassurance yourself, “oh wow all these sheep who think Old Spice is their only option, why not just work to become a wealthy, physically fit, confident man?” You resist the obvious influence of the commercial on what products you buy, but in the same breath you agree with the definition it gave you of the pinnacle man. Again, do you ever even question whether or not becoming that kind of man should even be your goal?
Understand that this is only one commercial. We are constantly bombarded from childhood by messages about what a real man is and why we should become that real man.
To be clear, I think it’s a good thing to earn more money, to become physically fit, and more confident. It’s not as if these are bad things to aspire to necessarily. And that’s kind of my point. We get a mixture of positive goals and negative goals, which makes it all the more difficult to separate the positive goals from the negative goals. We often adopt a negative goal assuming it’s as positive as the other goals. Or we might just adopt negative approaches to achieving positive goals.
The point is that we are given an external compass of “pinnacle masculinity” that is defined by specific goals and beliefs that we may not actually value and that may actually limit us. Then, all of this is locked within feelings of shame and inadequacy. The inner prison warden Kathekon tells us “oh you’re just too weak to achieve your goals. Stop being an emotional, feminine, little bitch and man the fuck up.”
Of course, there are even more ways this commercial defines masculinity. Remember we learn social expectations as we grow up that chain us to the vortex. Getting in touch with your emotions is necessary to break those chains and yet…getting in touch with your emotions and giving yourself love is feminine. We are rendered incapable of even addressing the very limiting beliefs that are keeping us trapped in this potentially false vision of masculinity. We can never figure out if it is true or false though, because challenging those beliefs would mean we’re feminine, and a man who is feminine is, obviously, gay.
How often has homosexuality been weaponized against you as a tool of control by other men?
All of this defines for you what men should be and what women should be…now, go work with women, go find a girlfriend, go hangout with other men…you see my point. With just a single commercial we can see so clearly how we are given an entire vision of who we must be as men and what other men and women must also be. We’re trapped in the box of modern masculinity guided only by an external compass chained to a vortex of emotional pain. How could we ever find our way to a positive masculinity?
The Prison of the Kathekon
At this point it likely seems clear what exactly I mean when I say the Kathekon. He’s the inner voice of the external compass of your culture. He’s the whisper in your ear that tells you to be a real man and exactly what it means to be a real man. When you are at the Conformist stage of your life the Kathekon’s influence over you is at its most profound.
If we want to start challenging the Kathekon’s voice I think we have to look deeper at the analogy of “inner prison warden,” and one of the best works I’ve read on the prison is Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.13
In my own reading of Foucault, he is trying to show us how the development of the prison co-created a specific view of the self. This can be captured in the following quote that a criminal sentence is not just “a legal decision that lays down punishment; it bears within it an assessment of normality and a technical prescription for a possible normalization.”
In other words, a guilty verdict implies that the criminal is “not normal”. So, what exactly do we mean by normal, and how exactly do we make someone normal? What is this if not a statement about the Kathekon. As I argued in my last essay, if our definition of normal has been defined by a sick culture, is the criminal sick and abnormal, or is the culture that produced the criminal sick and abnormal? Can it be both at the same time? The one we certainly shouldn’t be asking is the Kathekon himself, the inner prison warden who gets us to conform to society’s definition of “normal masculinity”.
But then, who actually does define what is “normal”? We all do, our society does, our media does, our politicians do. We are all contributing to and enforcing this definition of normalcy, but…the thing that Foucault highlights is how the very structure of society itself informs what we can consider normal. It’s not just that we have all of this information floating around waiting to be scooped up by our minds. It’s that part of “normalcy” is doing those things that funnel that information into our minds.
So obviously, watching TV when we get home is an example of a “normal” thing to do, and so if everyone is watching TV then everyone is getting access to specific information in a specific format. Such as an Old Spice commercial that tells us what it means to be a “normal” or “abnormal” man. Or what do you think happens when everyone watches the same super popular shows? Maybe we all have a slightly different opinion on it, but we’re still all watching the same shows.
Another example is school. What is that if not a heavily regimented program to indoctrinate our entire population of children into a specific worldview and way of living? I mean think about it. We literally force children to go to school every single day. We get them to go to classes in which we force them to learn what some organization demands they need to know. Why do they need to know that information? Because that’s the information we’ve decided will help them best conform to society as adults.
Within the first few pages of his book Foucault gives a schedule that prisoners followed each day and the first thought that came to mind was, “that’s basically school.” We sit in neat little rows to learn what the “wardens” demand we learn, we go outside the “prison” for recess to get a little playtime, and then we come back in to learn more, then go back outside for recess, and then we head home where we all watch pretty much the same shows because we know we’ll come back to school the next day to talk about it and we don’t want to be the weird kid who watches the weird shows. All of this is meant to turn us into what Foucault calls a docile body. He says that, “a body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved.”
Remember, again, that by the end of our teenage years and the beginning of adulthood, we have been given an external compass that we follow without question because we assume that it is “the natural way of things”. What is this if not the actions of docile bodies made ready to be used as cogs in the machine of society? So yes, saying “we live in a society” is cringe, but notice how “cringe” is a specific vortex of negative emotion and we are chaining each other to that vortex by calling certain things cringe. Some of these cringe videos are nothing more than bullying people who are different, who don’t conform or even have difficulties conforming.
Through social ostracism, we turn society into a prison, where some people are the popular, well-behaved conformists and the others the loser delinquents who are imprisoned in social outskirts. In the process of socialization we are not just taught to live in a certain way, but to think of ourselves in a certain way. It’s not just that we turn society into a prison. We turn ourselves into a prison.
The Kathekon, as the inner warden, defines what is right or wrong depending on the social expectations placed upon us, and defines those parts of our mind that must be repressed. We tell ourselves, don’t take a break because you have another test to study for or another spreadsheet to fill for your boss. Oh you’re tired and you want to hang out with your friends? Don’t do it too much, don’t have too much fun, because you’ll fail and not get that promotion or you’ll get that F and never get into grad school.
You want to reach out to your friend because you feel the weight crushing down upon you but you’re too afraid that he’ll call you a pussy and tell you to work harder. The fact that you don’t reach out is why you don’t learn that he feels and fears the exact same. Or perhaps you did reach out and he did call you pussy.
In either case, we fear what people will say about us if they knew that we had the bad criminal parts that everyone knows only weird, criminal people have. You break the unacceptable parts of yourself off and then lock them into the prison cells of your soul and do your best to show everyone that you’re a good little boy who only has the right parts inside of him.
In this process, we turn ourselves and each other into docile bodies, non-humans that can be made more or less useful depending on what machine we are meant to be a cog in. What more useful cog than the man who has bought into the pinnacle masculinity of wealth and status? What better cog to work as hard as he can to earn more money to buy more things, and make the ultra-rich that much richer? Kathekon drives us internally to know more and more, increasing our value to the very marketplace that indoctrinates more and more men to submit themselves to their own Kathekon.
Foucault Taken Too Far
During that rant, notice how you reacted as more and more emotion entered my voice. Did you feel yourself get carried away with my righteous fury at conformity? Or perhaps it made you feel repelled. Regardless of how you did respond, my point in mentioning this is for you to simply notice the influence my emotions and words had on you. While I believe everything I said, the way in which I said it may have been more or less persuasive. This is how we are motivated to conform. Our vortex is stimulated by intense words and Kathekon pulls our chains in the direction it demands we turn.
However, as I’ve said in all my essays, conformity is in many ways a really beautiful thing at a certain stage of our lives. Developmental psychologists say that it is a perfectly “normal and natural” thing for us to do. I know that sounds like more “Conformist” type thinking, but I do think it’s true. Dr. Jordan Peterson has written, “a child cannot live on its own. Alone, it drowns in possibility. The unknown supersedes individual … capacity … It is only the transmission of historically determined behavioral patterns … that enables survival in youth.”14
In other words, many of the “prisons” we have in society are meant to make society function well and taking them away could become a chaotic hell. The prisons and prisoners of society get groceries to you, get medical care to you, and get a pretty damn good education to you. I don’t want a society in which these things don’t exist. So, when I make these critiques, don’t think I am trying to say that all of this stuff is 100% negative. That’s not my point. Instead, my point is to simply make you aware how these processes have influenced the way in which you see the world so that you can question them and so that you can make them better.
As such, the path forward is not to blindly deconstruct the masculinity of Kathekon. As I’ll discuss in the next essay, our society has come to a point where much of the Kathekon has already been demonized and deconstructed. Unfortunately, Kathekon has often been the thing that gives our lives meaning. We go to college, find a wife, and have kids because these are the things that give our life meaning. While Foucault’s way of thinking has been profoundly important for questioning toxic systems in society and in ourselves, it has also not provided us with much of anything to aspire to.
Jordan Peterson’s “counter-culture” responsibility is the result of men who are starved for meaning in their lives. As you’ll discover in the next few episodes, it’s not that Kathekon per se is an enemy, nor is the Chained Vortex nor any other part of your psyche. It is instead the structure of Kathekon and how that influences the higher order structure of your mind, which in turn influences the structure and function of Kathekon. I realize that may seem a bit abstract right now but by the end of the next few episodes you’ll have a very good understanding of what I’m talking about.
Either way, that is enough for today. Thank you for your time and attention. Please hit the like button and subscribe for more conversations on masculinity, psychological development, and the cultivation of a personal mythology. Thanks again, and all the best to you on whatever journey you find yourself on.
If you’d like more, the recommended reading order is at the bottom of this link.
References:
1 – Urban Dictionary: We live in a society. (n.d.). Urban Dictionary. Retrieved September 23, 2024, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=We%20live%20in%20a%20society
2 – Sung, M. (2021, February 14). Unfortunately, we live in a society. Mashable. https://mashable.com/article/we-live-in-a-society-is-canon
3 – Kegan, R. (1998). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Reprint edition). Harvard University Press.
4 – Waszek, N. (1984). Two Concepts of Morality: A Distinction of Adam Smith’s Ethics and its Stoic Origin. Journal of the History of Ideas, 45(4), 591–606. https://doi.org/10.2307/2709375
5 – Cook-Greuter, S. (2021). Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making.
6 – Fight Club (1999)—IMDb. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2024, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/characters/nm0000093
7 – Peterson, J. B. (2019). 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Penguin.
8 – Su, R., Rounds, J., & Armstrong, P. I. (2009). Men and things, women and people: A meta-analysis of sex differences in interests. Psychological Bulletin, 135(6), 859–884. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017364
9 – Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Illustrated edition). Penguin Press.
10 – Gentry, J., & Harrison, R. (2010). Is advertising a barrier to male movement toward gender change? Marketing Theory, 10(1), 74–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593109355246
11 – Parent, M. C., & Cooper, C. (2020). Masculinity threats influence evaluation of hypermasculine advertisements. The Journal of Social Psychology, 160(3), 282–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2019.1644281
12 – Committee on Communications. (2006). Children, Adolescents, and Advertising. Pediatrics, 118(6), 2563–2569. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2006-2698
13 – Michel, F. (2020). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. PENGUIN.
14 – Peterson, J. B. (1999). Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1st edition). Routledge.