Gender and Contemporary Classicism

The Western World is having a neo-neo-classical era. Once again, were stripping down the Classical Antiquities to their ‘tolerable’ parts. Actual gayness is still not quite on the list, but homoeroticism very much is. The boys are getting vain again, and making it ultra competitive. The existence of looksmaxxing (see #1) culture is creating enough of a wave to make men overall care more about their hygiene. Muscles mean moral superiority and the prettiness of their faces determine status. 

Our Roman Empire is minimalistic(see #2). Distorted visually and philosophically, to fit our surface level tastes. Who has actually read any of the literature they base their entire personality, or at least their digital, visual ones on? Of course you’ve only watched a TikTok mini-series on it, that’s got to be enough to identify as a Stoic… (see #3) But you can’t forget to change your profile picture to a marble bust, that very well may not even have been made during the Classical era (see #4).  

We’ve gone Greek so many times we’re making copies of copies, and it all becomes less and less like anything. We follow the core principles of course, those being, democracy but only men should vote (see #5), advancement and innovation but no “DEI” allowed (see #6), only men can think, slavery, and there’s nothing more sacred and honourable than violence and dominance through it. In fact, if you’re a man, even submission and failure mean success. To merely be brave and die gets you into Valhalla according to popular seinen anime series “Vinland Saga.” (Yabuta, 2019). 

These principles have no basis in truth of genuine capability, just the illusion of grandeur. Men are so clearly outdone by Women in true pursuits of logic and wisdom including the entire institution of education (Morrison, 2024) yet remain at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Men and their rationality have only figured out to problem solve with violence, scaling said violence with the level of disagreement or discomfort. And only do they sometimes get the numerical proportions of action to reaction to make sense…  

It’s always when the working class of the least marginalized person, the white man, wants only to liberate themselves from class dividing structures. When they get up in arms but ignore every other victim of every other hierarchical system, do we get so Greco-Roman all over again. And I mean seriously, members of the ruling class are being accused of eating children; we literally cannot ignore the callback to Saturn/Cronus (see #7 & #8). And it appears our rulers ever increasingly conduct themselves like Hellenic gods in their disregard for and casual manipulation of human lives. 

At least Romanized times spell of class revolt and revolution, but if you’re anything but a white man, you can probably expect to add a few extra decades before you receive any benefits from it.

by: Althea Da Graca