your cultural hegemony is irrational

I'm still in OMG DISNEY mode, having gotten back from this year's Orlando trip a few days ago. That's fine, but I prefer to be equally balanced between all of my passions. The goal is not to turn down Disney, but rather just to turn everything else up. :) 

However, this makes me think yet again of how irrational ideological hegemony is. Take the idea of "you're weird for being a man who does expensive RunDisney races which are dominated by women" which yes, I do experience. No one says it explicitly but you can feel the side-eye. Never mind that I was 18th place out of over 12,700 people. 

That statement has a few underlying assumptions that, when you take them apart, have no actual underlying logic. 
  • Being "weird" is negative (why? weirdness is defined implicitly as deviation from the cultural norm, and what about that is inherently negative?) 
  • what is wrong with doing something that has more women than men in it? 
  • why do I need to be "masculine"? if you start chucking hypothetical apocalyptic scenarios at me, which seems to be the only counterargument, you are not actually advocating for masculinity; you are advocating for survival skills. 
  • what is wrong about doing something that is expensive? (Pretend I'm NOT funemployed. :P Otherwise, yes you have an argument, but I reserved this race last July and I wasn't going to lose my ROI.) 
  • bonus: Disney being "for kids", which -- while fundamentally untrue as the idea is to market to all ages, with only teens being accepted as a "we might miss that demographic" -- also makes no sense; what is inherently negative about liking something that wasn't originally marketed towards the demographic group that you incidentally happen to inhabit? 
Ultimately, it's a form of moral policing for no real reason. Try to poke for the underlying logical argument and you will not find one. It's an ornate palace built on sand. I guess it might be rooted in tribalism, with the idea being that super weird people wouldn't...get food or something. I don't know. In 2026, it makes no sense. Do what you want, society is fake and we're all careening towards our inevitable deaths anyway. 

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