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.
When it comes to iron determination, strength of character, courage, resilience and sheer power and scope, a man manlier than all of us was Fred Rogers.
He was a pretty tough sonuvabitch. He saw a whole generation of children frightened by a bold new world, and did something about it. Could you do this?
43I'm a big fan of the Two Rogers Rule.
"If Steve or Fred wouldn't do it, neither should you."
27My mother will go on and on about how much I loved watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood as a kid, he was a major contributor to my moral compass and his journey is inspiring
12Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/fKy7ljRr0AA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
8
Somehow, just about every time elite American men look at virtually any sociological change, they see a crisis of masculinity.
16And always a panic about the morals and life skills of the next generation. I've always hated "kids these days" arguments
Although, now that I'm getting older and I work in higher education, it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between actual need for educational reform to fit the modern climate and the relaxing of standards and rigor in higher ed. Is the crisis that we need to do a better job teaching students not to cheat, or do we just need to change how we write tests? Etc.
Anyways, get off of my lawn and thanks for coming to my TED talk.
10
"Manhood" and masculinity are stupid ideologies.
10Manhood or masculinity is perfectly fine so long as it’s a personal decision and you don’t judge others to whatever you’ve decided is the “standard”
If you want to wear plaid with an 18 inch beard and chop wood, awesome. Just don’t tell me thats the only standard for “a man”
6They can be fun and provide a lot of guidance for people in a world which otherwise has very little. It's important for people to be able to celebrate who they are.
-4no stupider than feminism
-14Untrue, feminism is based on a desire for equality, masculism is based on a desire for mAnLiNeSs. It's ephemeral, ill-defined, and pointless.
1
Elites... teach us??? Hmm, no.
Unless they're teaching us where not to stick the pitchforks.
4They like to influence the fucking morons of this country with non-stop testosterone-capitalism. They know exactly what they are doing -- marketing towards conservative cowards who didn't sign up to go to war.
look at the trucks, the beards, the hair -- they wall want to be operators SO badly without actually doing anything.
4
This article and every other article they link to in this series is written by a woman. A series discussing manhood and masculinity. I said it the last time an article like this was posted and I'll say it again. Women writing articles about masculinity should be viewed in much the same way as men writing articles about women. They have no perspective in what it means to be a man or what masculinity is or is not.
Edit: Adjusted wording per another reply.
4I agree with some of what you say but "abhorrent trend " is a bit much. If anything I think it's more of and eye roll.
2Yeah that's probably fair. Perhaps a little overly reactive on my part.
3
Initially, the article brought up a lot of cool things about masculinity, which I didn’t know: notably about how society, sees a crisis of masculinity, at every social change.
However, the article did not wrap this up at all. It resorted to talking about essentially a religious convention, and Trump rally. Then referenced so-called “philosophers” and “scholars” akin to Joe Rogan. This isn’t a fair comparison, it’s literally asking a podcast host to solve a huge social issue.
Additionally for some reason referencing how white men don’t even belong in America because it’s native land; when that is a whole separate issue that we can talk about and needs to be addressed but distracts from the article title.
I would love to talk about this more, but this article really drags men’s mental health + belonging in the dirt and undermines anyone trying to legitimately help men belong in this world in a non-toxic and fulfilling way.
1Great article. Insightful and over a longer time horizon than I expected
1