Quote:
Originally Posted by mixedmedia
No, I wasn't speaking to you directly. Just to the thread in general. 
I don't think that making choices and trying to be a good person is indicative of angst. In fact, your words tend to support what I've been saying all along. At some point in our adult lives, we choose who we want to be and we act in ways that support that ideal (barring mental illness). I don't really understand how the lack of having a good male role model (for a man) in one's childhood is anything but angst. By adulthood, people know what is good and upright behavior and they either choose to go that route or they are consumed by narcissism or greed or hate or any other number of negative characteristics and they choose to go another. These are people with good role models in their lives and those without.
I could be missing the mark completely and I accept that. If so, I really would like to know what it is that is missing. How do you who feel like you missed out on early male role models feel you would be different today if you had them? What kind of psychological nuance are we talking about? |
If there is no role model, of whatever type, throughout childhood, then that formative phase of life has lacked instruction. Yes, adults know which route they should take, but that doesn't mean it's easy. If that's what you mean, I think just saying 'angst' is putting it lightly. There can be a lot of pent up anxiety, and shoving it all down by choice can be tough. I had to teach myself that my troubles are specific to my persona, and seem so bad because they're pushing my limits. Anybody else could feel as bad or worse, because the extreme feeling of the situation is determined by comparison to previous experiences. So, the severity should be dealt with, not acted on, because you can't know it is truly as bad as it feels.
I never thought of Joss Whedon as a role model. I finally watched most of Firefly in the past few months, but I thought a few episodes were terrible and others had plot ruining lines whose inclusion explained why the show was canceled, or that episode was never aired. I think him being a role model is very dependent on how your perceive his stuff. I thought it was lousy and designed to appeal to certain stereotypical female angles. Discussing it with female friends has made some Firefly less enjoyable for them, and some Star Trek less enjoyable for me. So be careful when you recommend Joss Whedon