Mmm. Okay, I agree with is broadly and speaking about men as individuals, for the same reason it's not the job or responsibility of feminists.
And that's because it's propaganda.
Look. We all need to take responsibility for ourselves in seeing where and how we're influenced by propaganda. We need to consume less media and test the media we are consuming for accuracy more. We need greater media literacy and critical thinking.
But it's not my job to do that for you, for example, if you've been propagandized to believe flying rats from Antarctica are about to drop vials of plague made in China over Canada. Right? It's your job to discern that some alarm bells are going off that this is most likely bullshit and do some investigsting and critical thinking.
It's not your job or responsibility to save me from myself if I've been propagandized to believe Ukrainian lesbians have magically altered a water fountain in Seattle to emit rainbows on a sunny day as part of the LGBTQ+ agenda because Putin suggested a threesome with them on social media to protest the war. Right? I think most reasonable people would agree that no, it's more my responsibility to recall 1st and 2nd grade and then seek some therapy. Cause, damn! Right?
All right, those are extreme and obvious examples I cobbled together from nonsense noise on social media. Clearly ludicrous. Borderline insane, even. We're talking Margery Traitor Trash territory here with a garnish of Jewish Space lasers. You have to be in a deeply unstable place mentally to believe or promote anything QAnon related. It's that clearly whacked.
Most propaganda is a lot more subtle. It does take some discernment and thinking to suss it out. Propagandists are very skilled at slow trickle manipulations as far as thought processes go while simultaneously bombarding the public with that idea; the more something is repeated, the more "true" it becomes. Obviously, were talking about accepted as truth here.
It takes more effort to resist and repel propaganda as a population than it does to create it in the first place. We are highly vulnerable here as humans. Especially without government support and intervention.
But why would they do that. All governments rely on propaganda as a tool to control their populations because it works and it's mostly nonviolent. Theyre not going to give up their favorite tool.
So we're on our own.
Online, we all choose the spaces we want to be in and the amount of time we spend there and for what reason/purpose. There comes a point where saving someone from propaganda they refuse to protect themselves from in the slightest measure means infringing on their autonomy and space or putting yourself in harm's way. Either way, that's a slippery slope and a dead end.
Ultimately this is something we need to realize about ourselves and fix for ourselves.
