Subcontracting Your Identity—The Autophobic Response

Man-groups, militias, boogaloo, proud boys, Qanon. There's always an option to outsource our identity to some "Mantifa". Truck w. a Harley sticker. Guy with Viking braids and Thor jewelry. Asher Black asks if we're just scared to be originals.

Welcome to another episode of Manhearted. The show about being a man I'm Asher Black, your host powered by spunk. And once again, we'll aim to get to the heart of it. Manhood.

This episode is about subcontracting, your identity, which is an interesting phrase. I've taken from Douglas Copeland, who has written about generation X and he's known for his novel micro serfs and other books and articles, etc, a controversial figure. But one of the things that I really dig about what he said using that phrase is he's describing a concept called auto phobia and auto phobia. He defines his fear of being an individual and he might think, well, you know, isn't individualism built into the heart of what it means to be an American and a, and to be a man. The rugged individualist, that's our icon, right? The Marlboro man, rugged individualist, the Levi's wearing Ford truck driving, Budweiser drinking individual. It's funny because I just named three corporate brands whose logos appear all over these rugged individuals, lifestyles, and, and you know, luggage and so on.

And, and it's funny that people use that concept of a rugged individualist and then go ahead and brand themselves with sort of these clone brands that look like everyone else. So the point that he makes is, and this is quoting him being an individual is hard work, no wonder. It's just easier to subcontract your identity to Q Anon or Antifa. I may have said this before. I'm one of those people that doesn't believe Antifa exists, even for those people that call themselves members. I think it's a construct that lives in their head. It's like if I said I was a member of the Jedi order that doesn't mean there's this thing called the Jedi order that I can, that one can go and find, right? It's more like a Dungeons and dragons fantasy than it is an actual thing. But Q Anon is also an open a morphous movement, but it's got self-identified members who you know, showed up and trashed the Capitol building in a failed attempt to invade it and take over our government.

So that's a little bit more sort of visceral and tangible, but that aside the point being, you know, he makes this excellent observation that it's just easier to be a member of something to assign yourself an identity that is essentially fealty to a group. So let's talk about that a little bit. So going back to the logos for a minute, you know, this is a thing I, I lived in the south for a certain portion of my life, and I, I remember seeing all these trucks driving around with Harley emblems on the window of the truck, on the back window. And you know, we'd look at each other and say, if you got a Harley logo, just drive a Harley, you know, what are you doing in a truck? You know, half of those guys don't even own Harleys, right? And you see all these people and it'll say, you know, Smith and Wesson, Colt 45.

You know, I always think, I don't want another man's name on my clothes. I'm not going to be a walking billboard for somebody else's brand, you know, Louisville. Instead, I'm going to put my name on my clothes. I'm freaking Asher. I want, I want clothes brand or nothing. I don't, I don't need some other guy's name too, to make it right. But you know, it's just part of that whole gun culture. You're just mentioning Smith and Wesson, you know, you'd go out and buy your store bought, man. You know, I've got my two friends, Smith and Weston. It's like, well, you couldn't do it yourself. You had to go get help. Something you picked up at a Walmart, you know, like wants to be a tough guy by leaning on some other brand right there. But this Harley thing, you know, it's not, you know, that's a cliche, but look around you.

How many people...