We are vultures picking through the bones of a dead world
operant conditioning chambers, carrion crawling, job-seeking in necrotic economy, masculinity, and a response to Jessa Crispin's "American Men are Superstitious Pigeons"
(not a part of Thus Always Unto Tyrants, the first post of that kind in a while)
The argument begins with a reference to the experiments of the semi-disgraced psychologist BF Skinner. The experiment in question is one where pigeons, placed in a box (operant conditioning chamber), were given a lever to push, a lever that would ostensibly dispense food but in fact had no effect on the dispensation of food, which happened at random. The pigeons develop superstitions and keep pressing the lever even when the food does not come. Crispin goes on to use this experiment as a metaphor for the condition of men in a “post-patriarchy” world, pressing the same levers over and over again, expecting the same results.1
Overall, a provocative argument, one whose obviously insulting is backed up by the writing itself (of course it is insulting to say things like “men are superstitious pigeons flapping their wings, and bobbing their heads, trying to get that food pellet2 but with an admirable amount of plausible deniability.
Here’s the thing. That lever isn’t giving food. Crispin seems oddly more critical, even disdainful, of the (non-metaphorical) birds than either of the dubious experiment or operant conditioning chamber we find ourselves in we find ourselves in now She seems more critical of the birds than the experiment, and shows a strange disdain for the non-metaphorical birds. She says, as a criticism that “some of the pigeons will turn against the machine”.3 But why shouldn’t they? The machine is torture chamber for them, designed to perform psychological experiments by withholding food. The problem, that she correctly identifies, is that for many flapping pigeon men, turning against the machine means identifying as the problem “feminists or gender confusion or cultural Marxism.” The machine, as it were, is incorrectly identified in ways that only redouble patriarchal ideology and the worst manifestations of revanchist masculinity (manifested in the election of Donald Trump, “manosphere” influencers like Andrew Tate, and a general air of chauvinism). The machine as it were, the operant conditioning chamber, (speaking metaphorically now) should, needs to be turned against. The chamber, as it were, isn’t feminism, it is, as always, capitalism. The birdlike condition (birdlike and therefore somehow less than human) that men find themselves in can only be moved beyond by recognizing the real cause.
I’ve been thinking of another bird, one that more accurately captures the feeling of living under late capitalism- the vulture. We live in the era of vulture-capital. Swooping in and stripping whats left for parts. Copper-wire capital. It’s making vultures of everyone, leaving us picking at the bones of a dead world. It is dehumanizing. Degrading. It is humiliating to pick at the carcass, to be reduced to a carrion crawler. Living off a dying economy. Crispin, is right: manufacturing and other “male-coded” jobs are gone and they’re not coming back, despite Trump’s promises, despite whatever he says the tariffs will do. 50s Detroit isn’t walking through that door. But it’s not just blue-collar work, obviously. The job market is necrotic. To work— or worse, not work— feels like picking at the scraps of something that was once alive. To work (or not) in arts or academia or journalism is to pick through the ruins of decimated field. I’m pushing the lever every time I send an application to ghost job application on Linkedin. Artificial intelligence, so to speak, burning through the job market almost as quickly as it burn through energy.4 Getting an email job, any white-collar job, any that matches what I would call my skillset feels as out of reach as a job in academia5, which feels as out of reach as job as songwriter on Music Row. I keep pushing that lever. Maybe that makes me a pigeon.6 Crispin identifies the condition as a “vision of manhood that looks an awful lot like a desperate man in a casino, placing wild bets on impulse he confuses for rationality, hoping for a jackpot win.”7 I think thats right. I feel that way.8 The fear of failure is like a shard of glass I can’t get out of my throat. I’m never done when I reach a goal. I keep pushing that lever. She calls this condition “speculative masculinity” but I locate this in a part of myself much further down than something like gender.
When a Man strides through and promises to restore the eagle, a vulture may listen. Donald Trump is a Man, still a Man. This is exceptional, not because he is a paragon of masculinity, but because being a Man means being Human, and that stands out in a world were people are more and more, dehumanized, reduced to pigeons and vultures. He is one of the few people still afforded humanity (straight, white, male- yes, but it is more than that- only a few straight white men have not been made vultures or, as you say, pigeons.) A world of men-turned-vultures by late-capitalism are liable to fall under the sway of a man who has retained his manhood (humanity) and when he promises a restoration of lost manhood (masculinity without humanity) some will fall for it.
It is degrading to be vulture picking at the bones. It’s dehumanizing. I think everyone is feeling a constant and brutal sense of dehumanization right now. I feel it. A dehumanizing degradation of the human soul and human body under capitalism.9 There is a loss of dignity. Even for men. It is real and pretending it isn’t is only of limited utility. There is a loss. There is a loss of dignity. A dimming horizon. A loss of control over the direction of one’s life.10 A sense of humiliation. I am sympathetic to men want to restore that dignity to their lives. I would like to restore dignity to mine.
That dignity won’t be restored through the manhood (masculinity without humanity) offered by the “manosphere” or Donald Trump. Donald Trump et al have been catastrophically successful in convincing men that source of diminishing horizons is feminism, woke, all that.11 I am not against masculinity as such but if I believe that a humanity-without-masculinity is preferable to the masculinity-without-humanity on offer. Call me naive but I still believe 1. a better world cannot be built without men and that 2. men can still be brought back into the fold, can realize that even if the false promises of Trump et al restore their “masculinity” they won’t restore their humanity, and that humanity can only be restored through (gender-egalitarian) collective action.
I won’t get into my general ambivalence towards behavioral psychology but I am worried that Crispin walks a little close to evolutionary psychology, a field that Skinner’s work was well integrated into and that often peddles a pop-essentialism useful to the masculinist project.
Who isn’t trying to get that food pellet?
“The pigeon is certain there must be a reason for it”- of course there is a reason for it. BF Skinner designed the operant condition chamber that way. Doesn’t this suggest we are animals at the whims of a system beyond our control? Wouldn’t the system that arbitrarily dispenses food be the real issue. Is it not worth turning against that machine?
A confession- I have used chatgpt to help me polish cover letters and resumes. I know that, if my resume is “read” it is “read” by an AI. So I guess part of the vulture job market is AI “readers” “reading” AI written application?
I turned down a PhD program at the University of Mississippi the a few weeks ago. I still feel a little sick to my stomach over it even though I think it was the right decision. It feels like a ghost ship that passes by when I’m drowning. It was smart to not board that ghost ship but I’m still drowning.
To be fair, that lever used to deliver. It wasn’t like Skinner’s experiment, where the lever had no relationship to anything. In the era of post-war prosperity, pushing that lever did distribute the food pellet.
The casino has been replaced by sports betting apps.
Look, I’ve spent my 20s writing and playing music. I’m not unfamiliar to the long shot hope. I think anyone working in art or literature or academia is. Substack is basically the same casino. Everyone wants that long shot success, especially now that regular-success has been made unreachable.
There is a soul much deeper than wherever masculinity exists, deeper than gender, and therefore, there is the potential stain deeper than those surface level things. But that is not for now.
“The patriarchal connection between behavior and reward has been severed.” But the connection between behavior and reward full stop has been severed.
I will be honest though, the Democratic Party’s, (rip) decision to run a campaign believing they could win without men, doing nothing to try to win male voters and at time actively shunning them played a role.[I do remember in my early 20s the concern trolling that men were actually too far left and that that was annoying, which I think looks pretty bad in retrospect, if I’m being honest].