Very good piece, Linker. I would also advise men (women also) to turn away from popular religion (especially fundamentalist Protestantism, mistakenly called "evangelical," which is largely responsible for fueling this whole moral panic) and seek instead a life of serious reflection on what it means to be human instead of a beast or a god. I know you personally are Jewish and have rejected Christianity for the time being, but mid-20th century Protestant thinking along the lines of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Reinhold Niebuhr (whatever one's opinions are about his politics--he was very sound on matters of the Christian faith) would be a great resource for people, believer or non-believer alike, to gain some perspective and a sense of proportion on the cultural hatreds that are engulfing our civilization--few if any are actually totally new. If their works seem daunting, and they will be, especially if one has no prior education in basic theology or an extensive exposure to disciplines like history, first visit the articles on them in Wikipedia and start from there using search sites--those theologians' own works and those that introduce their thought are found aplenty on used book websites and quite a few are still in print (ebooks even). One should have no illusions about easiness of comprehension--they admittedly wrote for an audience still steeped in the folkways of Christendom unlike us moderns (by the way, spare me the lectures about this being a supposedly "post-modern age"--I am not buying it anymore), make no mistake. Those who are dogmatic fundamentalists, "orthodox," full-fledged "woke," or atheists will not find their viewpoints convincing, of course, and probably should not waste their time. But for those who are screaming for sanity, especially at this time of year when people suspect that the Christmas season had something behind it originally before the onset of consumerism some 80-odd years ago, they might well find some relief. They might also be led to a reconsideration of the Christian faith as liberating instead of enslaving; very likely there are churches nearby their residences that will proclaim that truth instead of the sorry syncretism that is now called "Christian nationalism." That is for them to decide, of course, but it is where I take my stand as I write on the day before the annual commemoration of God coming into human flesh as the ultimate "beta male"--a helpless baby boy.
I find it interesting, amuzing a sad when I see the likes of Carlson talk about masculinity and then mock possibly the bravest man in the world. Zelensky's bravery comes not from aloofness but from a genuine love of country and the Ukranian people. Carlson and his ilk worship a terrified thug and denigrate a truly brave man. The I r sense of masculinity is warped beyond belief. It is
also very disturbing to see the intersection of this warped masculinity and the christian right. The book "Jesus and John Wayne" explores this in detail.
Your reference to Aristotle, from which you get your title, takes us back to the culture of ancient Greece, which provides the foundation of half of Western Civilization (the other half being the culture of ancient Israel). One of the four virtues Aristotle (via Plato) identifies is ANDREIA, which we normally translate as “courage” or “fortitude,” but its root meaning is “manliness” (from ANDROS, of man). The archetype of manhood for Plato and Aristotle, as for ancient Greek civilization generally, was, and remains for us Westerners today, the hero of Homer’s second epic: Odysseus.
In addition to possessing all four virtues — PHRONESIS, SOPHROSYNE, DIKAIONSYNE, and ANDREIA (prudence, temperance, justice, courage) — Odysseus as a model for manhood presents a striking image of uxoriousness: all he wants after the Trojan War is to get home to be with his wife, Penelope. We first see him weeping on the beach of Calypso’s island. Alas, the beautiful goddess forces him to make love to her every day, a task most men would die for. But he wants his Penelope
In one of poetry’s great metaphor-symbols of all time, when Odysseus finally does get home and slays (with his son Telemachus) the “suitors” who have defiled his home, he gets to enjoy his heart’s desire: a night of lovemaking with his beloved Penelope. The goddess Athena (after whom Greece’s greatest city is named) gracefully blesses her champion’s homecoming by extending the night hours, thus extending the domestic lovemaking that had been suspended for twenty years, ten at war and ten more getting home. He spends that joyous night, the end of his longing, in the marriage bed he had made himself out of a living tree, around which he built his home with Penelope. His marriage bed is rooted in the soil of Ithaka, his kingdom. His private, domestic life, and the happy duties of that life, balance the public, civic duties he exercises as king (or, the duties of all men in democratic Athens of Plato and Aristotle).
Odysseus, then, as James Joyce implies in his modern masterpiece ULYSSES, is the model of manhood for ancient Greece, and for us today. .
My first thought upon reading this column is that Twitter is not real life. I would bet any amount of money that over 99% of the American people wouldn't know who Nick Adams was if they fell over him and I don't even detect any kind of diffuse impact of ideas like his. On the contrary, for better or worse, modern men seem to have embraced a lot of feminine/therapeutic culture ideas about how to deal with their feelings. That's not so say there is a crisis of masculinity, which probably has many causes including economic changes that have made blue collar men less attractive marriage partners, a sexually libertine culture that has demoted marriage and family to one lifestyle choice among many rather than a rite of passage that confers status and respectability in and of itself and the pervasive influence of feminist ideas in various educational and cultural institutions that sometimes unfairly pathologize men and masculinity. Obviously its important for our culture to have a healthy masculinity that is congruent with both human nature and the needs of society but the rantings of a few yo-yos on Twitter aren't the real problem.
That's a shocking and misguided tweet. It's fascinating and upsetting to see this brand of masculinity being promoted as some kind of answer to a crisis. Very different from the caring and loving version of the ideal man that I was taught and hold to.
The idea of a bunch of lone wolf self interested, self important men running around is frightening and heartbreaking. I suppose if you want to build a walking void, you follow the advice of that tweet.
Significant concern over men not being manly enough probably predates TR by about one generation., though the UK was primary origin, in the 2nd half of the 19th C. See "Muscular Christianity", a topic which was much discussed around home during TR's childhood.
0.) The number of men who claim to be 'Alpha Males', allowing for a moment the incorrect notion that it were a valid category for primates (or even wolves—with them it is a rôle, not a caste) is surprising only if one does not know how many people 'conscious of [their] Past Lives' believe that those were spent being royalty of one sort or another.
1.) I would take 'manipulated by their wives' most often to mean 'seriously taking into account their counsel' because, even if it should be in one case or all wiser than the husband's, doing so undermines his Authority.
2.) It is interesting to note how little these conservatives trust in the romantic 'Market', one in which at least some aspects (relative attractiveness) and places (e.g., colleges and among co-workers) there is far greater initial equality than in economic doings—although I'm not so far removed from it not to notice that economic and social advantages have their effects…. Admittedly one of the columnists addressed directly in one of the "The Week" columns did suggest improving the product on-offer, explicitly stating though that nothing could be done for the brand.
3.) The 'crisis in masculinity' is certainly nothing new; I should say that the ideology of Muscular Christianity puts the 'cross' in 'CrossFit'. It is hardly novel of me to point-out that Teddy-boy Roosevelt's generation profoundly felt their non-service in the Civil War, and now we have generations of men simultaneously worshipping the military and almost entirely not serving with it.
4.) I have no such trouble: the combined seriousness and levity with which I was told that I was 'A Man' in my earliest 'teens, and a family legacy that insisted that 'masculine' meant 'staying indoors and studying hard' took care of that…no matter how often and how loud the screams impugning my manhood were every school-day.
There are times when it feels as if there were scarcely an issue of the RIght's which does not intersect with a perceived Masculine Crisis, to at least some noticeable extent, and some seem little _but_ such.
In his account of the Trojan Wars, Homer makes a point that the Greeks fought like savages because they weren't in front of their wives and children, whereas the Trojans fought with restraint because of that fact. This neo-masculine ideal is therefore very much pre-Socratic in the sense that even Homer (a pre-Socratic himself) offers us social commentary on "manliness run amok" and the carnage that ensues without masculinity being shaped by the civilizing influences of the city and of families.
You know who else was obsessed with pre-Socratic manliness? Nietzsche. A common problem with conservatives is that they can find Marx in everything but can't be bothered to find Nietzsche anywhere. I guess a certain type of conservative would find Nietzsche unobjectionable (just like there are liberals who are openly Marxist) but for religious conservatives this is hugely problematic. Nietzsche expressly set out to refute Christianity, which he blamed for the decline of pagan manliness.
Well said.
Very good piece, Linker. I would also advise men (women also) to turn away from popular religion (especially fundamentalist Protestantism, mistakenly called "evangelical," which is largely responsible for fueling this whole moral panic) and seek instead a life of serious reflection on what it means to be human instead of a beast or a god. I know you personally are Jewish and have rejected Christianity for the time being, but mid-20th century Protestant thinking along the lines of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Reinhold Niebuhr (whatever one's opinions are about his politics--he was very sound on matters of the Christian faith) would be a great resource for people, believer or non-believer alike, to gain some perspective and a sense of proportion on the cultural hatreds that are engulfing our civilization--few if any are actually totally new. If their works seem daunting, and they will be, especially if one has no prior education in basic theology or an extensive exposure to disciplines like history, first visit the articles on them in Wikipedia and start from there using search sites--those theologians' own works and those that introduce their thought are found aplenty on used book websites and quite a few are still in print (ebooks even). One should have no illusions about easiness of comprehension--they admittedly wrote for an audience still steeped in the folkways of Christendom unlike us moderns (by the way, spare me the lectures about this being a supposedly "post-modern age"--I am not buying it anymore), make no mistake. Those who are dogmatic fundamentalists, "orthodox," full-fledged "woke," or atheists will not find their viewpoints convincing, of course, and probably should not waste their time. But for those who are screaming for sanity, especially at this time of year when people suspect that the Christmas season had something behind it originally before the onset of consumerism some 80-odd years ago, they might well find some relief. They might also be led to a reconsideration of the Christian faith as liberating instead of enslaving; very likely there are churches nearby their residences that will proclaim that truth instead of the sorry syncretism that is now called "Christian nationalism." That is for them to decide, of course, but it is where I take my stand as I write on the day before the annual commemoration of God coming into human flesh as the ultimate "beta male"--a helpless baby boy.
I find it interesting, amuzing a sad when I see the likes of Carlson talk about masculinity and then mock possibly the bravest man in the world. Zelensky's bravery comes not from aloofness but from a genuine love of country and the Ukranian people. Carlson and his ilk worship a terrified thug and denigrate a truly brave man. The I r sense of masculinity is warped beyond belief. It is
also very disturbing to see the intersection of this warped masculinity and the christian right. The book "Jesus and John Wayne" explores this in detail.
Your reference to Aristotle, from which you get your title, takes us back to the culture of ancient Greece, which provides the foundation of half of Western Civilization (the other half being the culture of ancient Israel). One of the four virtues Aristotle (via Plato) identifies is ANDREIA, which we normally translate as “courage” or “fortitude,” but its root meaning is “manliness” (from ANDROS, of man). The archetype of manhood for Plato and Aristotle, as for ancient Greek civilization generally, was, and remains for us Westerners today, the hero of Homer’s second epic: Odysseus.
In addition to possessing all four virtues — PHRONESIS, SOPHROSYNE, DIKAIONSYNE, and ANDREIA (prudence, temperance, justice, courage) — Odysseus as a model for manhood presents a striking image of uxoriousness: all he wants after the Trojan War is to get home to be with his wife, Penelope. We first see him weeping on the beach of Calypso’s island. Alas, the beautiful goddess forces him to make love to her every day, a task most men would die for. But he wants his Penelope
In one of poetry’s great metaphor-symbols of all time, when Odysseus finally does get home and slays (with his son Telemachus) the “suitors” who have defiled his home, he gets to enjoy his heart’s desire: a night of lovemaking with his beloved Penelope. The goddess Athena (after whom Greece’s greatest city is named) gracefully blesses her champion’s homecoming by extending the night hours, thus extending the domestic lovemaking that had been suspended for twenty years, ten at war and ten more getting home. He spends that joyous night, the end of his longing, in the marriage bed he had made himself out of a living tree, around which he built his home with Penelope. His marriage bed is rooted in the soil of Ithaka, his kingdom. His private, domestic life, and the happy duties of that life, balance the public, civic duties he exercises as king (or, the duties of all men in democratic Athens of Plato and Aristotle).
Odysseus, then, as James Joyce implies in his modern masterpiece ULYSSES, is the model of manhood for ancient Greece, and for us today. .
My first thought upon reading this column is that Twitter is not real life. I would bet any amount of money that over 99% of the American people wouldn't know who Nick Adams was if they fell over him and I don't even detect any kind of diffuse impact of ideas like his. On the contrary, for better or worse, modern men seem to have embraced a lot of feminine/therapeutic culture ideas about how to deal with their feelings. That's not so say there is a crisis of masculinity, which probably has many causes including economic changes that have made blue collar men less attractive marriage partners, a sexually libertine culture that has demoted marriage and family to one lifestyle choice among many rather than a rite of passage that confers status and respectability in and of itself and the pervasive influence of feminist ideas in various educational and cultural institutions that sometimes unfairly pathologize men and masculinity. Obviously its important for our culture to have a healthy masculinity that is congruent with both human nature and the needs of society but the rantings of a few yo-yos on Twitter aren't the real problem.
That's a shocking and misguided tweet. It's fascinating and upsetting to see this brand of masculinity being promoted as some kind of answer to a crisis. Very different from the caring and loving version of the ideal man that I was taught and hold to.
The idea of a bunch of lone wolf self interested, self important men running around is frightening and heartbreaking. I suppose if you want to build a walking void, you follow the advice of that tweet.
Significant concern over men not being manly enough probably predates TR by about one generation., though the UK was primary origin, in the 2nd half of the 19th C. See "Muscular Christianity", a topic which was much discussed around home during TR's childhood.
0.) The number of men who claim to be 'Alpha Males', allowing for a moment the incorrect notion that it were a valid category for primates (or even wolves—with them it is a rôle, not a caste) is surprising only if one does not know how many people 'conscious of [their] Past Lives' believe that those were spent being royalty of one sort or another.
1.) I would take 'manipulated by their wives' most often to mean 'seriously taking into account their counsel' because, even if it should be in one case or all wiser than the husband's, doing so undermines his Authority.
2.) It is interesting to note how little these conservatives trust in the romantic 'Market', one in which at least some aspects (relative attractiveness) and places (e.g., colleges and among co-workers) there is far greater initial equality than in economic doings—although I'm not so far removed from it not to notice that economic and social advantages have their effects…. Admittedly one of the columnists addressed directly in one of the "The Week" columns did suggest improving the product on-offer, explicitly stating though that nothing could be done for the brand.
3.) The 'crisis in masculinity' is certainly nothing new; I should say that the ideology of Muscular Christianity puts the 'cross' in 'CrossFit'. It is hardly novel of me to point-out that Teddy-boy Roosevelt's generation profoundly felt their non-service in the Civil War, and now we have generations of men simultaneously worshipping the military and almost entirely not serving with it.
4.) I have no such trouble: the combined seriousness and levity with which I was told that I was 'A Man' in my earliest 'teens, and a family legacy that insisted that 'masculine' meant 'staying indoors and studying hard' took care of that…no matter how often and how loud the screams impugning my manhood were every school-day.
There are times when it feels as if there were scarcely an issue of the RIght's which does not intersect with a perceived Masculine Crisis, to at least some noticeable extent, and some seem little _but_ such.
In his account of the Trojan Wars, Homer makes a point that the Greeks fought like savages because they weren't in front of their wives and children, whereas the Trojans fought with restraint because of that fact. This neo-masculine ideal is therefore very much pre-Socratic in the sense that even Homer (a pre-Socratic himself) offers us social commentary on "manliness run amok" and the carnage that ensues without masculinity being shaped by the civilizing influences of the city and of families.
You know who else was obsessed with pre-Socratic manliness? Nietzsche. A common problem with conservatives is that they can find Marx in everything but can't be bothered to find Nietzsche anywhere. I guess a certain type of conservative would find Nietzsche unobjectionable (just like there are liberals who are openly Marxist) but for religious conservatives this is hugely problematic. Nietzsche expressly set out to refute Christianity, which he blamed for the decline of pagan manliness.