The Crisis Over American Manhood Is Really Code for Something Else
The Crisis Over American Manhood Is Really Code for Something Else
Male malaise in the United States goes back to the founders, and it is a preoccupation of elites in particular. They might teach us something about this current wave of manliness panic.
"Hawley typically cites Big Tech, Hollywood and academia as the unholy trinity of elites that has laid masculinity to waste. He likes to quote the titles of old feminist essays from obscure journals to imply that all college professors and all Democratic politicians hate men. But even as he blames this ruling-class syndicate for depriving men of their ancient reason for being, his own fears sync with ruling-class fears from time immemorial. Elite men are anxious that their wives, workers and children will gain financial and intellectual independence, take their property and flee. And then the unkindest cut: Someone new — a lowly outsider who has been waiting in the wings — will take their place at the top of the social order."
Masculinity is made up bulshit to divide us.
18I'm actually willing to accept that Hawley 's masculinity is under threat. I feel pretty good about mine, tho.
12
“Hawley typically cites Big Tech, Hollywood and academia as the unholy trinity of elites that has laid masculinity to waste..."
well, Hawley and his ilk, are on to something, although not quite what they think. Mass media, and more recently the internet, has brought about the democratization of media, culture, and knowledge, of discourse and interaction, for the masses. No longer controlled by the ruling elites, the masses can use and come to understand and to organize in ways that shift the old power dynamic, and now those in power on the right see the people - and, especially, their means of empowerment - as a threat.
So, it's not that straight, cis, white men (or even masculinity itself) that are under attack per se, it's the current power dynamic that progressive movements seek to change. its dominance by straight, cis, white men is, academically speaking, just a coincidence. When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
13Excellent article - thank you for sharing it. I was familiar with the post Civil War “crisis” or masculinity because men weren’t “battle tested” but I wasn’t aware of the other historical echoes. At any point in history society is always on the verge of collapse because the kids are heathens and the world is evil. I do wonder about this conference in regards to mental health. I can’t imagine that they were encouraging men to talk about their feelings and seek help. I would love to be wrong.
6Ginsburg talked about it in "Howl" in, what? 1956?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,"1