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What Is the Core of Masculinity?
Weve covered the 3 Ps of Manhood (protect, procreate, and
provide), and weve distilled them down to the fundamentals the
ancient, nearly universal standards of manhood that have existed
around the world for
thousands of years.
But in studying them, one cant help but notice that their
requirements are not exclusively manly. Havent women played a part
in these roles, not just now, but since time immemorial? Is it
possible then to drill down
through these fundamentals even further, to find the role and
its attendant
attributes that are, if not exclusively manly, then the most
distinctively
masculine the very core of manhood?
If we look at the procreator and provider imperatives, we find
that they are
roles that men and women share and that what is distinctively
masculine about them comes down to a difference in emphasis.
In the procreator role, it most certainly takes two to tango.
The emphasis is
simply placed on the man taking the initiative in getting the
proceedings
started.
In the provider role, men and women have shared the
responsibility for
contributing sustenance to their families since the dawn of
time. Here the
emphasis is on the husband contributing more than the wife, and
making a
more vital contribution (protein vs. plants, in premodern
times).
It is then the charge to protect that emerges as the most
distinctively
masculine of the 3 Ps of Manhood. Because this role involves
both
defending and conquering, it might be better termed as the way
of the
warrior. The role of warrior/protector has been almost
exclusively male up
until the present day, and continues to endure nearly unchanged
in the
modern era.
Even in the most progressive of families, when something goes
bump in
the night, the man will not send his wife to investigate while
he huddles
under the covers. When the car stalls in the middle of nowhere,
a man will
not send his wife to walk miles in search of the nearest gas
station while he
stays to wait with the kids in the locked car.
On a national level, though all combat positions in the US
military,
including the Special Forces, have and will possibly be opened
to women
(some positions are currently being studied, and may remain
closed in the
future pending those results), this role will almost certainly
remain nearly
exclusively male for reasons both of motivation and aptitude.
Women
currently make up only 15% of the militarys ranks. Of that 15%,
less than 8% are interested in pursuing combat positions. And of
that 8%, a third
would like to work on the aviation side as part of helicopter
crews that provide support for special operations forces. At the
same time, it is yet
unclear what percentage of this already small fraction of women
willing to
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serve will be able to pass the physical standards required,
unless those
standards are lowered (and military men and women alike are
unanimous
that they should not be changed). For example, the
implementation of a
new standard requiring all Marine Corp boot camp recruits to
pass a pull-
up test (women can currently pass the test by doing a flexed-arm
hang)
was delayed when it was found that more than half of the female
Marines
could not do the minimum of 3. And of the 14 women who have so
far
attempted to complete the grueling Marines Infantry Officer
Course, all have washed out all but one of them on the first
day.
These kinds of numbers are similar to those in militaries that
have a longer
history of opening combat roles to women. For example, in the
Israeli
military, only 3% of female soldiers work in combat positions
and a large percentage of that small fraction are part of what is
essentially a
military police/border patrol unit.
Perhaps most tellingly, the announcement that the US military
would open
combat positions to women was not accompanied by an
announcement
that all American women would now be required to sign up for
the
Selective Service, as all males are currently obligated to do.
If WWIII
broke out tomorrow, America would not be sending its women to
the
frontlines en masse.
The protector role is not only the most distinctively masculine
duty, it is
also the manly imperative that makes the others as well as all
the higher virtues possible.
A man cant provide or procreate if he and his people are under
attack and are taken captive and/or subjugated by an enemy. In
times of war and
crisis, those other roles are put on hold all that matters is a
mans worth as a protector. Think of our most recent worldwide
crisis; in WWII, men
shipped out to serve as protectors, women shifted to take over
the now
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vacant provider role, and procreation was put on hiatus,
awaiting a post-
war baby boom.
You may believe that a real man cultivates his mind, or does
creative
work, or shares his feelings openly, or happily plays tea party
with his
daughter, or loves Jesus. But none of those things no
philosophizing, or worshipping, or reading, or parenting is
possibleif you and your loved ones are dead.
Thus, I think it can clearly be argued that the very core of
traditional
manhood is the protector role, and every attribute that is most
distinctly
masculine is tied to that role. Its the foundation for both
being good at being a man and being a good man.
Man-at-Arms
When an ethnographic survey was done of 70 cultures around the
world to
look for the prevalence of female warriors, 87% restricted women
from
any kind of participation in war. What accounts for this?
We have touched on the reasons men have historically been given
the
warrior role in previous posts, but I think they could use a
little reiterating
and expansion. Men were not assigned the protector role
arbitrarily, but
because of basic biological and psychological differences
between males
and females differences that encompass both
motivation/temperament and aptitude/effectiveness.
Motivation/Temperament
The warrior role fundamentally involves the giving and receiving
of
violence, and men likely have violence built into their very
DNA. Harvard
biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham argues that men are
the
product of millions of years of evolutionary selection for
aggression.
Although we think of chimpanzees as cute and cuddly, among our
closest
primate relatives, violence is in fact ubiquitous. Male
chimpanzees form
small raiding parties that go to war with neighboring gangs,
fight over
territory, and conduct border patrols viciously attacking and
killing any rival gang member that comes too close to the perimeter
of their realm.
These patriarchal primates are highly concerned about alpha
status and will kill simply for the sake of power and respect to
show they can do it and should not be messed with.
Occasionally a few females will accompany the males on these
border
patrols, but they will drop off as the males approach the
perimeter.
Sometimes a lone female one who typically does not have children
will accompany the gang right up until the start of the skirmish.
But as the
male chimps start to pile on an interloper, she will pull away
and watch,
choosing not to participate in the melee.
Thus it can be argued that human males are products of millions
of years
of blood-soaked-bellum. In a recent interview, Wrangham posited
that
males are predisposed by their evolutionary background to take
advantage of opportunities to be violent. Men, he says, are violent
by temperament. The police forces, governments, and social mores of
modern civilization now check this primordial instinct, but in
premodern
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times the male proclivity for aggression had much freer reign
and
opportunity to be exercised.
[Because I know someone will bring it up yes we are also related
to the more peaceful, matriarchal bonobos. Bonobos resolve conflict
with sex,
rather than violence. Researchers speculate that male bonobos
may have
the potential for violence, but this proclivity is kept in check
by groups of
alpha females. An innate predisposition for violence does not
mean it cant be tempered by cultural constraints. In this way, as
we shall see in a later post, bonobos are much like modern
humans.]
While the prevailing view among anthropologists was long
that
hunter/gatherer tribes were very peaceful bucolic, noble savages
many modern researchers like Wrangham, Napoleon Chagnon, and
Steven
Pinker convincingly argue that just the opposite is true.
Amongst
premodern peoples who lived in proximity to neighboring tribes,
there is
strong evidence that conflict was in fact continual and quite
bloody.
Primitive human males literally aped their ancestors forming
small gangs, competing for status, and fiercely maintaining
boundaries. In the
few tribes that did allow women to take part in raiding parties,
just like as
with the chimpanzees, typically only one or two childless women
would
choose to come along.
Thus, an innate attraction to and greater comfort with violence
likely
naturally drew men to the way of the warrior and made them
well-suited
for being tasked with the role of protector.
Aptitude/Effectiveness
Though in every tribe there were likely a few women with the
temperament and desire to be warriors, most cultures still chose
to keep
the protector role exclusively male.
In our modern times of relative peace and prosperity, this
strikes us as
inherently unfair. We are used to viewing all roles through the
prism of
individual proclivities, so that if a woman has the aptitude and
motivation
to serve as a protector, she should be allowed to fulfill her
human
potential.
But in primitive times, what mattered most were not individual
desires, but
the needs of the group that which helped the tribe survive as a
whole trumped everything else.
Even if one does not agree with the leap Wrangham makes from
chimp to
human violence (fact: with any anthropological theory there is
great
controversy!), there are also several very straightforward,
biological
reasons why men were felt to be the most effective fighters and
thus solely
charged with the imperative to protect.
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First, because men will never be pregnant or nursing, they will
always be
hypothetically the most battle-ready and most able to leave home
at any
time to fight many miles away.
Second, males greater amounts of testosterone make them
well-suited for the warrior role for a couple of reasons. First,
testosterone is linked with a
greater desire to compete and take risks. Studies show that when
a man
wins in a contest, he is hit with a boost of dopamine and a
surge of testosterone that makes him want to keep on competing. So
while
testosterone doesnt directly make men more aggressive (thats a
myth its more complicated than that), it does fuel a drive to keep
pushing when someone else is pushing back.
The shoulders and arms of male humans like the neck muscles of
red deer, the clasping hands of a xenopus frog, or the canine teeth
of many
other primates look like the result of sexual selection for
fighting. All these examples of male weaponry respond to
testosterone by growing.
They are specialized features that enlarge for the specific
purpose of
promoting fighting ability in competition with other males.
Small wonder,
then, that men show off to each other before fights by hunching
their
shoulders, expanding their arm muscles, and otherwise displaying
their
upper-body strength. Richard Wrangham
Testosterone also helps men build greater physical strength than
women.
In a time before technological innovations in war, all combat
was
incredibly physical often of the man-to-man, hand-to-hand
variety. Physical size and strength (especially of the upper body)
was a vital
component of a warriors prowess in battle, and men are taller on
average than women and have a higher ratio of muscle to fat tissue.
Overall
physical hardihood was crucial as well, and men have denser
bones and
are less prone to injuries resulting from strenuous movements
and physical
contact.
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Finally, in primitive times, keeping ones population growing was
paramount, and thus wombs were valued much more highly than
sperm,
and men were seen as more expendable. It was a simple matter of
survival
arithmetic: if a population has 50 men and 50 women, and 25 men
and 25
women are sent out to fight, and the warriors come back from
battle with
20 men and 10 women still alive, there are now 35 women left who
can
carry a child, and 30 men who can possibly impregnate them (some
men
will not get to father a child). 35 is thus the maximum number
of children
that can be born in the next 9 months. But if the group of
warriors sent out
had consisted of 50 men, and 30 came back alive, those 30 men
can
impregnate all 50 of the remaining women (some men will
impregnate
more than one woman). Now there are 50 hypothetical children
that can be
born in the coming year.
Even if there was an elite woman in the tribe who was drawn to
the
masculine virtues and just as capable and strong a fighter as
one of the
weaker men, that was one womb that could not be spared. Such
a
calculation sounds horribly crude and offensive to us, but this
was the
basic calculation our hunter/gatherer forbearers made for
thousands of
years. When the size of ones village mattered both as a
deterrent to an enemys attack, and simply the hope that your
peoples line would go on, every potential child mattered.
These were the factors that our forbearers weighed on the scale
in making
the decision to assign the protector role to men. It wasnt a
matter of plain sexism, and trying to keep women down, but a basic
biological calculation.
In a harsh environment that was rife with perils both natural
and human, it
was a strategic decision designed to increase a tribes chances
of survival and keep the most people alive. Individual desires and
differences were
trumped by group needs.
Keeping the Perimeter
When men evaluate each other as men, they still look for the
same virtues that theyd need to keep the perimeter. Men respond to
and admire the qualities that would make men useful and dependable
in an emergency.
Men have always had a role apart, and they still judge one
another
according to the demands of that role as a guardian in a gang
struggling
for survival against encroaching doom. Everything that is
specifically
about being a mannot merely a personhas to do with that role.
Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
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As Ive been working on this series, thinking through the
tradition of manhood, and attempting to synthesize Gilmores
findings and the manifestations of the manly code in different
cultures, boy, its really tasked my brain. When my mind got tied up
in knots and the meaning of
manhood became seemingly impenetrable and obscure, I often
found
myself thinking about the definition of masculinity laid out in
Jack
Donovans The Way of Men.
While I dont agree with all of Donovans positions (and as well
see in the last post in this series, I come to a different
conclusion about manliness in
the modern day), for a powerfully stripped down examination of
the
essence of manhood, his thesis is without rival. In its raw
simplicity it is
compelling and potently convincing.
Donovan essentially comes to the same conclusion that I have
that when you distill the essence of masculinity of being good at
being a man down to its very core, what you find is man as
protector; literally, man as guardian of boundaries. (The traits
that make for a good warrior are
also those that make for excellence in that most manly of the
provider
roles as well hunting). Donovan arrives at this conclusion by
imagining the qualities that would have been most needed and
respected in men in
the harshest of environments:
You are part of a small human group fighting to stay alive.
The reason why doesnt matter.
Conquest, war, death, hunger or diseaseany of The Horsemen will
do.
You could be our primal ancestors, you could be pioneers, you
could be
stranded in some remote location, you could be survivors of a
nuclear
holocaust or the zombie apocalypse. Again, it doesnt matter. For
humans without access to advanced technology, the scenario plays
out more or less
the same way.
You have to define your group. You need to define who is in and
who is
out, and you need to identify potential threats. You need to
create and
maintain some sort of safe zone around the perimeter of your
group.
Everyone will have to contribute to the groups survival in some
way unless the group agrees to protect and feed someone who cant
contribute due to age or illness. For those who can work, youll
need to decide who does what, based on what they are good at, who
works well together and
what makes the most practical sense
If there are females in your group, they will have plenty of
hard and
necessary work to do. Everyone will have to pull their own
weight, but the
hunting and fighting is almost always going to be up to the men.
When
lives are on the line, people will drop the etiquette of
equality and make
that decision again and again because it makes the most
sense
The first job of men in dire times has always been to establish
and secure
the perimeter.
People cant fight and hunt and kill all day and all night
forever. Humans have to sleep, they have to eat, and they need
downtime. You need to
create a safe space and set up camp somewhere.
Youll also have to identify some desirable resources, like
access to water and food. One of the first things you have to
consider is whether the spot
makes you vulnerable to attack from predators or unknown groups
of men.
Then you do some basic reconyou check out the surrounding area
to see if there is evidence of another tribe, or undesirable
beasts. Tired and
satisfied, you and your pals set up a base camp and keep an eye
on a
rudimentary perimeter.
The survival of your group will depend on your ability to
successfully
claim land and keep it safe.
When you claim territory and draw a perimeter, that line
separates your
group from the rest of the world. The people inside the
perimeter become
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us and everything known and unknown outside the perimeter
becomes
them.
Beyond the light of your night fire, there is darkness. They lie
just beyond
the flicker of your fire, out there in the dark. They could be
wild animals,
zombies, killer robots or dragons. They could also be other men.
Men
know what men need, and what they want. If your men have
something
that men want or need, youll have to be wary of other men. The
things that have value to mentools, food, water, women, livestock,
shelter or even good landwill have to be protected from other men
who might be desperate enough to harm you to get those things. The
perimeter separates
men you trust from men you dont trust, or dont know well enough
to trust.
Donovan argues that the way of men is the way of the gang,
because when
placed in a harsh environment, men will quickly make the
logical
calculation that they have a much better chance of surviving if
they band
together than if they each try to go it alone. For some folks,
gang is a word weighted with negative connotations, so substitute
posse or platoon or whatever else if you must. The important thing
to realize is that the small, tightly-knit honor group was the
basic male social unit for
eons. The myth of the uber-manly lone wolf is just that. With
few
exceptions, men have always fought and hunted together.
Cowboys
banded together, pioneers banded together, and Rambo wouldnt
have actually stood a chance.
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Donovan argues that understanding the dynamics of these ancient
honor
groups is the key to understanding the essence of male
psychology and
how men relate to, interact, and judge each other even up
through the
modern day. What men respect in other men (and women find
attractive),
is rooted in what men wanted in the men to the left and the
right of them as
they stood together side-by-side on the perimeter.
To understand what men have needed from each other for thousands
of
years, let us turn back to our guardians huddled on the boundary
between
safety and threat:
If you are fighting to stay alive and you are surrounded by
potential threats, what do you need from the men fighting with
you?
What do you need from us to fend off them?
If eating means facing danger together, who do you want to take
with you?
What virtues do you need to cultivate in yourself and the men
around
you to be successful at the job of hunting and fighting?
When your life and the lives of people who you care about depend
on it,
youll need the men around you to be as strong as they can be.
Living without the aid of advanced technology requires strong backs
and elbow
grease. Youll need strong men to fight off other strong men.
You wont want the men in your gang to be reckless, but youll
need them to be courageous when it matters. A man who runs when the
group needs
him to fight could put all of your lives in jeopardy.
Youll want men who are competent, who can get the job done. Who
wants to be surrounded by morons and f**k-ups? The men who hunt and
fight
will have to demonstrate mastery of the skills your group uses
to hunt and
fight. A little inventiveness couldnt hurt, either.
Youll also need your men to commit. You will want to know that
the men beside you are us and not them. Youll need to be able to
count on them in times of crisis. You want guys who have your back.
Men who dont care about what the other men think of them arent
dependable or trustworthy. If youre smart, you will want the other
men to prove they are committed to the team. Youll want them to
show that they care about their reputation within the gang, and
youll want them to show that they care about your gangs reputation
with other gangs.
The Tactical Virtues
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The virtues associated specifically with being a man outline a
rugged philosophy of livinga way to be that is also a strategy for
prevailing in dire and dangerous times. The Way of Men is a
tactical ethos. Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
To the description of the ideal perimeter-keeper outlined above,
Donovan
assigns four tactical virtues: strength, courage, mastery, and
honor. These are simple, amoral, and functional virtues the
practical virtues of men who must rely on one another in a worst
case scenario. They are amoral because they are crucial to the
success of any gang no matter if what theyre fighting for is right
or wrong. Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are the attributes
needed in a team of Navy SEALs just as much
as a family of Mafioso. If youve ever wondered why we are
fascinated by gangsters, pirates, bank robbers, and outlaws of all
stripes, and cant help but think of them as pretty manly despite
their thuggery and extralegal
activities, now you know; theyre not good men, but theyve
mastered the core fundamentals of being good at being men.
Lets take a quick look at what these tactical virtues
require:
Strength: Physical prowess and power; ability to dominate an
opponent (of the natural or human variety) instead of being
dominated, and to stand fast and immovable when pushed.
Courage: The spirit /will/discipline to engage and employ ones
strength when inwardly tempted to shrink/run/hide. There are
higher forms of courage, but at its most fundamental, it
represents an outwardly demonstrated indifference to risk,
pain,
and physical danger.
Mastery: Skill and adeptness in using the techniques and
technology employed in hunting and fighting; a deft
understanding
of knowledge that saves lives and furthers the interests of
your
group.
Honor: Traditional honor is not the same as integrity living up
to your own, personal standards. Traditional honor is a
reputation
for strength, courage, and mastery as judged by other men.
Honorable men care about being manly, knowing that each
individual members prowess in the tactical virtues bolsters the
strength and reputation of the gang as a whole and thus deters
attack from rival gangs. Dishonorable men, on the other
hand,
evince indifference or hostility to the standards, weakening
the
group and leaving it more vulnerable.
The key to upholding honor in a male gang is to always try to
pull your
own weight to seek to be a boon rather than a burden to the
group. If a man lacks in physical strength, he might make up for it
in the area of
mastery being the groups best tracker, weapons-maker, or trap
inventor; one crafty engineer can be worth more than many strong
men. If a man
lacks in both physical strength and mastery, he might still
endear himself
to the other men with a sense of humor, a knack for
storytelling, or a talent
in music that keeps everyones spirits up. Or he might act as a
shaman or priest performing rituals that prepare men for battle and
cleanse and comfort them when they return from the front. The
strong men of the
group will usually take care of the weak ones who at least try
to do
whatever they can. Shame is reserved for those who will not, or
cannot
excel in the tactical virtues, but dont try to contribute in
some other way, and instead cultivate bitterness and disregard for
the perimeter-keepers
who ironically provide the opportunity to sit on ones hands and
carp.
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Men compete within a team to earn honor and show who in the
group has
the most prowess in the tactical virtues. At the same time, this
intra-group
competition prepares the team to face rival/enemy gangs.
Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are virtues that obviously
arent exclusive to men, and its not that there havent been women
who have embodied these traits in every age (as we shall see next
time, the idea of a
soft, fragile femininity is a modern conception). It isnt that
women shouldnt seek these attributes either. Rather, the tactical
virtues comprise the defining traits of masculinity. If a woman
isnt strong or acts afraid in the face of danger, no one thinks of
her as less womanly because of it. Yet
such shortcomings will be seen as emasculating in a man, even
today.
So what are the defining traits of femininity? Oh-hoho, Im not
going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. Its taken me years to
understand manhood, and Im still refining my views. I wouldnt
appreciate it if a woman who hadnt rigorously studied masculinity
offered an off-the-cuff definition for it, so I will refrain from
doing likewise. Someone should start an awesome
Art of Womanliness-type blog and explore the subject. Ill be a
reader.
The Linchpins of Civilization
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Strength, Courage, Mastery, and Honor are the alpha virtues of
men all over the world. They are the fundamental virtues of men
because without
them, no higher virtues can be entertained. You need to be alive
to philosophize. You can add to these virtues and you can create
rules and
moral codes to govern them, but if you remove them from the
equation
altogether you arent just leaving behind the virtues that are
specific to men, you are abandoning the virtues that make
civilization possible. Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
The tactical virtues might understandably make some modern folks
feel
uncomfortable, as they may seem rather raw, primal, and thuggish
to
contemporary sensibilities, and anything described as amoral
tends to put people on guard.
This discomfort arises from the fact that, again, the tactical
virtues may be
employed for good or ill. We may be fascinated by watching the
exploits
of Vikings on television, but were they poised on the outskirts
of our town,
ready to pillage and plunder, we would be quaking in our shoes.
Gangs of
men can wield surprising power against entrenched interests (see
the
protests around the world these past several years) and turn
order into
chaos.
Thus in the modern day we are much more apt to cheer and
celebrate the
higher virtues over the tactical variety.
But in truth the two sets of virtues cannot be separated one
makes possible the other. Without (at least some) men who are good
at being
men, there would not be the safety and peace that makes possible
the
unencumbered pursuit of being a good man.
In the direst of times, in the harshest of environments, danger
is all around
and can come from every direction. People live close to the
boundary
between safety and threat, and all men must serve on the
perimeter and
cultivate the tactical virtues of the protector as best they
can. Violence is
not an option; it is a way of life. At such times, moral and
spiritual codes
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can certainly be present and may strongly motivate and influence
men in
their fight, but there is significantly less time for rituals,
worship, and
contemplation. Winning the battle and surviving take top
priority and the
virtues needed to accomplish that mission strength, courage,
mastery, and honor are most emphasized.
Men who have accomplished the first job of being menmen who have
made survival possiblecan and do often concern themselves with
being good men. As the bloody boundary between threat and safety
moves
outward, men have the time and the luxury to cultivate
civilized, higher virtues. Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
As civilization advances, danger and threat recede and
become
concentrated in more predictable spots along the perimeter. Only
these
particular borders must be guarded and less men are needed to
serve as
protectors. People move their settlements farther away from
threats to a
more comfortable zone of safety where they dont have to
constantly look over their shoulder, and can let down their guard.
In these areas of greater
peace and plenty, men, now freed from serving as protectors (at
least full-
time), can concentrate more on the procreator and provider roles
and
specialize in an area that best matches their interests and
talents. There is
time and opportunity to develop writing, art, and music, to
ponder the
meaning of Beauty, Wisdom, Justice, and Truth, and to dream up
more just
political and cultural systems and increasingly compassionate
moral codes.
One purpose of these moral codes is to govern male violence to
create rules for when it is and is not appropriate to employ and to
channel it
towards worthy ends.
An ideal of manhood and the language of the tactical virtues
remain, but
the concepts become more metaphorical; strength of body expands
to
include strength of character; moral and intellectual bravery
are added as
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categories of courage. Rather than seeking to conquer enemy
tribes, men
seek to conquer themselves and vanquish their weaknesses.
Instead of warring with human combatants, men battle cancer and
fight for rights. The competitions men engage in to prove their
manliness also get
increasingly abstract; rather than going toe-to-toe on the
battlefield, men
try to best their fellows in sporting events, debating contests,
scientific
advancements, and business enterprises. As the circles of
abstraction
extend even further away from the core of manhood, men
content
themselves with simply watching other men do these things; the
number of
doers shrinks while the number of spectators grows. Men read and
write
about the manly deeds of the past, rather than performing such
deeds
themselves. Their field of struggle is internal rather than
external, and they
work on bettering their lives.
This flipping of priorities from an emphasis on being good at
being a man,
to being a good man is a luxury made possible by the outsourcing
of the
protector role to what becomes an increasingly small warrior
class of men.
As George Orwell put it, men can only be highly civilized while
other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed
them.
It is quite easy to lose sight of this, especially in our modern
society where
less than .5% of the population serves in the military (and an
even smaller
percentage of that sees combat) and wars are fought far, far
away. In such
a bubble, its tempting to get on ones high horse about men who
are too brutish for ones tastes and how disdainful and
unenlightened violence is. But as Orwell also said in regards to
pacifism, Those who abjure violence can only do so because others
are committing violence on their
behalf.
Again, however, it is important not to split being good at being
a man and
being a good man into a strict dichotomy. It is only in our
modern age that
we tend to see brains and brawn, goodness and strength as
mutually
exclusive traits. While one set of virtues are prioritized over
another
depending on circumstances, since the dawn of civilization there
have
been men who strive for and achieve excellence in both the
tactical and
higher virtues. And men who excel on either one end of the
manliness
spectrum or the other, often have a symbiotic relationship. The
best
warriors are rarely the best writers and the best writers are
rarely the best
warriors. But the writings of great authors and philosophers
have often
inspired great warriors, and great warriors have often inspired
great
writing.
Even the men we hold up as proof that you can be manly by living
the
higher virtues without completely fulfilling the 3 Ps of Manhood
ultimately derive their inspiration from the fundamental
underpinnings of
the tactical virtues. Figures like Gandhi and Jesus are lauded
for their non-
violence and their goodness, but our ability to think of them as
manly,
derives from their embrace of masculine expendability a
courageous indifference to the pain and suffering others might
inflict on their physical
body. They were good men, certainly, but their willingness to
sacrifice
themselves for the sake of their people, also made them good at
being
men.
The Protector Endures
-
A man is not merely a man but a man among men, in a world of
men. Being good at being a man has more to do with a mans ability
to succeed with men and within groups of men than it does with a
mans relationship to any woman or any group of women. When someone
tells a man to be a
man, they are telling him to be more like other men, more like
the majority
of men, and ideally more like the men who other men hold in high
regard. Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
Even though we now live in the suburbs instead of the savanna,
and the
vast majority of men arent asked to serve as protectors on a
day-to-day basis, our propensity for evaluating men in light of the
tactical virtues is
surprisingly enduring.
When men and women alike look at a man and gauge how manly he
is,
their immediate, gut-reaction is still based on the tactical
virtues how strong and tough he appears. If you look at the picture
above, your
instinctive reaction will be to say, Yep, theres a manly man
right there.
If someone asks us if our smart, albeit skinny friend is manly,
our primal brains immediate reaction is to think, Not really. Well
then check this reaction, and look for other factors that might
prove our visceral response
wrong: Well, he is manly because hes a really accomplished
engineer. Likewise, if we are asked if a very obese man who gets
winded just
climbing a flight of stairs is manly, our brain will initially
answer in the
negative, but quickly follow up with, But he is manly because
hes such a good dad.
When a man breaks down and cries not because of understandable
grief,
but because hes frustrated or demoralized by a setback, a womans
visceral reaction will often be to recoil at what registers as
emasculating
behavior. Shell then push that thought away and tell herself,
No, its good that hes able to express his feelings.
When we have this Not manlyyes manly reaction, our older, more
primal brain responds first, and then after a few beats our modern
brain
comes online and reevaluates things. Our primal brain reacts to
a man the
way it did for thousands of years by gauging whether or not youd
like to have that man on your team were you guarding the perimeter
together. Our
modern brain then kicks in and reminds us that were not
surrounded by danger anymore, and that the guy next to us doesnt
need to be strong and courageous a nice guy whos honest and kind
and laid-back will do just
-
fine. Likewise, when a man does something that would be
considered
historically emasculating, a womans primordial instinct is to
worry about his prowess as a protector would he fall apart in the
face of real danger? But the part of her brain that processes
modern sensibilities will try to
squash that instinctive anxiety: Thats silly. He doesnt need to
be a protector for me. Its more important that hes sensitive.
This mental push and pull gets to the heart of todays crisis in
masculinity. Should we try to get rid of that initial visceral
judgment of men altogether because the tactical virtues are now
largely irrelevant and
this ancient rubric of manhood leaves out too many men? Should
we try to
make manhood more inclusive so no one need be excluded or feel
bad
about their shortcomings? Is continuing to encourage young men
to be a man and be tough damaging to their psyche? Would they be
happier without the expectation of toughness and if they were
allowed to be more
sensitive and able to openly express their feelings at all
times? If the way
of the warrior is deeply ingrained in mens psyche, perhaps even
in their DNA, what becomes of manliness in a time when this
potential and
propensity has no real outlet? If we ignore and condemn it will
it go away?
Can men be content with just participating in (and watching)
abstractions
of combat and competition? What becomes of the way of the
warrior when
there are no more wars to be fought?
Suffice it to say, our modern culture is deeply conflicted about
the answers
to these questions. Exploring the origins of this conflict is
where we will
turn next time.
Read the rest of the series: Part I Protect Part II Procreate
Part III Provide Part IV The 3 Ps of Manhood in Review Part VI
Where Does Manhood Come From? Part VII Why Are We So Conflicted
About Manhood?