I’m all for calling out toxicity and pursuing work-life balance. At the same time, I think it is important to understand where the other side is coming from. Civilization, in all it’s ugly glory, does thrive (and sometimes only survives) when people (yes, usually men) take insane unbalanced risks -- and win.
I completely agree this is far from ideal, and like you I hope to create a world where that is less necessary. But -- in the spirit of facing ugly realities head on -- we need to admit there is a time a place where that sort of bravado was actually helpful, if not necessary.
Only by giving the devil his due can we truly defeat him. Otherwise, we end up congratulating ourselves on our virtue while the other side burns us to the ground.
I’m all for calling out toxicity and pursuing work-life balance. At the same time, I think it is important to understand where the other side is coming from. Civilization, in all it’s ugly glory, does thrive (and sometimes only survives) when people (yes, usually men) take insane unbalanced risks -- and win.
I completely agree this is far from ideal, and like you I hope to create a world where that is less necessary. But -- in the spirit of facing ugly realities head on -- we need to admit there is a time a place where that sort of bravado was actually helpful, if not necessary.
Only by giving the devil his due can we truly defeat him. Otherwise, we end up congratulating ourselves on our virtue while the other side burns us to the ground.
Did that make sense?