It’s Time For a “Menaissance”
March 28, 2008 by haytkir
I’m not much for comments. Especially Slashdot and Digg comments. Sometimes though I’ll peruse the comments on blogs and for the following post, reading the comments is definitely worth it. If one ignores the premise that “there are no women on the internet” then I am able to remain surprised at the number of women commenting on a recent post over at The Art of Manliness. I honestly had no idea that many women would be reading a site about manliness. However, I find their insight and opinions very useful and I appreciate the fact that they are posting them.
With any emotionally charged topic it is important to remind you, dear reader, that I will be using generalizations and stereotypes. I am aware of this and am comfortable doing so.
As a male I spend a reasonable period of my daily life attempting to be appealing to women. Dressing neatly and cleanly, maintaining an ordered and organized home and office as well as trying to remain thoughtful on what other people are thinking and feeling are just some of the ways that I try to not be a man-jerk. Behaviorally this goes so far as to completely ignore women whilst at a gym or intentionally not looking at an attractive woman at the coffee shop or grocery store. I hate the idea of being one more guy who is staring or making a woman feel uncomfortable. Frankly, I know some women seek this type of attention out, but honestly I’m not interested in that kind of woman anyway.
The latest post over at the Art of Manliness kind of summarizes some of my feelings on the whole reason I think a site like theirs IS in fact popular. While the polls at the end of the post are indeed skewed, it is interesting to see what people have voted and what comments have been posted. There are some rather thoughtful posts by both men and women and naturally (this is the cyberwebtubes after all) thoughtless comments.
However, I personally feel and apparently other men do that they have lost something of themselves in today’s society. I don’t feel that I’ve ever grown up. I refer to myself as a “man” now, but honestly there is a part of me that resonates with Tyler Durden in “Fight Club” when he says:
Tyler Durden: My dad never went to college, so it was real important that I go.
Narrator: Sounds familiar.
Tyler Durden: So I graduate, I call him up long distance, I say “Dad, now what?” He says, “Get a job.”
Narrator: Same here.
Tyler Durden: Now I’m 25, make my yearly call again. I say Dad, “Now what?” He says, “I don’t know, get married.”
Narrator: I can’t get married, I’m a 30 year old boy.
No, I don’t advocate violence as a method of dealing with your personal issues. So… when did I become a “man”? Is there a definite point? Must it involve a rite of passage, be it marriage or self-sufficiency or some other measure of achievement?
The thought first occurred to me when I realized that there is now an entire genre of cartoons (i.e. Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, etc) whose audience is solely adults, many of which I enjoy.
Is there something wrong with this? Not that I can see, yet I am concerned that I will end being that 30 year old boy because we (males as a gender) have lost the methods by which we were supposed to learn responsibility and integrity. Those two traits are the best that I’ve been able to deduce as being qualifiers for “manhood”.
Were past methods and by extension men better because of “rites of passage”? I don’t necessarily think so. I like the world we live in now better than the world I read about in history books. However, it does appear to me that our society needs to integrate or establish some method to compensate for the lack of responsible males in our society. Again, I’m not saying there are no responsible males. They certainly exist, it just appears to me that there are less now than from what I read about in the past.
How can a man in today’s society be manly without becoming a poster cut out of drunken stupidity and chauvinism ala SpikeTV?
The two traits that I think clearly span the test of time, once again are responsibility and integrity. Let’s take a look at each individually:
Responsibility: noun (pl. -ties)
- the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or having control over someone.
- the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something
The second definition is the one I think really applies here. The idea of manhood equating to responsibility is that one takes on the burden of doing the essential things that others do not want to. In the past it meant taking the trash out and mowing the lawn, but ultimately what that represents is being conscious and anticipating the needs of others and moving without being asked and without expectation of reward to fulfill those needs. This applies to both home and work life as one can really stand out as an above average employee if they anticipate and pre-solve problems that arise in the workplace.
Integrity: noun
- the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness
Here is where the quality of manhood really finds it’s foundation. Indeed even responsibility must stem from a life lead with integrity. The principle of integrity and by extension honesty is rooted in the principle of being honest with yourself. In my previous post about The Importance of Being Earnest mentioned this as well with an illustration from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We must be honest with ourselves or we are incapable of being honest with others. Quite simply, if you are lying to yourself, the lense of your mind is skewed in such a manner that your ability to be honest with others in your life will be hindered at the least if not completely impaired. Your personal lies will seep into every other aspect of your life, resulting in a lifetime of unmet expectations and disappointments.
To yourself then be as brutally honest as you possibly can. Do not hide from uncomfortable topics or aspects of your life that you wish could be different. Face them directly, acknowledge them and look at the methods of solving these problems. It could be something as simple as a bad habit of leaving your dirty clothes on the floor or it could be as serious as an addiction to alcohol or drugs. You may struggle with your issue for years to come, but one step towards solving your problem is more than you will ever accomplish by ignoring it.
So then the life of integrity, that of meeting both your own expectations and fulfilling the expectations you set for others is the other defining trait of manhood as I see it.
These two allow a boy to be someone who can be dependable, reliable, trusted and ultimately loved.
What is your view of manhood?
I’m right there with you on that Fight Club quote. I have a “real” job, bought a house, have a steady girlfriend, but I still don’t feel like I’ve entered into any sort of next phase of my life. Hell, I’m 26 and I don’t daydream any less than I did at 13.
In another sense, it feels like feminism 2.0 has diminished the need for men. There is less obligation to be a man than there ever was before, though the need has never been greater. I find myself having to be proactive about it. As in, proactive in taking responsibility, in leadership, in not taking the easy way out. Though joining a fight club would probably just be easier.
What were the past methods of “rites of passage” for men? And how have they changed today? And why do you feel they are obsolete?
From what I’ve read, so no personal experience here… there were once rites of passage to “manhood” in cultures across the globe. The wikipedia (so take with a grain of salt) page on rites of passage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage) lists a number of “coming of age” rites from different cultures. Within my own culture and life experience I do not see anything quite like this anymore. Interestingly, one of the “rites” listed is Prom. While I went to two proms they definitely didn’t come across as any kind of turning point in age status.
I agree that we don’t have many cohesive cultural “rites of passage”.
But I can’t say that I blame any group for that. I think it’s more of a product of the very nature of our country (very consumer oriented now, and never having been all that culturally cohesive in the past.)
And unfortunately men pretty much MUST rely on some kind of cultural rite of passage, since there’s no “natural” equivalent, like the beginning of menstruation, for them.
But within my community, there is a strong sense that this is important. A good friend of mine helped to found a wilderness rite of passage group (http://www.riteofpassagejourneys.org/), and our church regularly holds them for the youth. I suppose that (or something like it, there’s Christian equivalents too, though they do seem to be heavily sexuality oriented, instead of whole-person oriented, at least in my experience) is bridge to “manhood” or “adulthood”. But in our culture, there are so many. There’s legal majority (chronological, coming in spurts, at 16, 18, 21, 25). Financial independence (arguably the most important factor in our current culture). Marriage is one, and so is parenthood.
Maybe that’s where a lot of the fractured feelings come from. I think the human psyche craves ritual. Yet in our society we don’t really have a clear path to adulthood, where you do this one feat, and everyone in your culture universally recognizes you as adult.
And, I’m not sure feelings play much of a role. I tend to be the youngest in my groups of friends by at least a decade. Of the two women friends I feel closest to (in an equal-friendship sense, not mentor–though I do have beloved mentors as well) one is in her late 40s, the other is in her 70s (15 and 42 years older than me!) and both of them have said that they don’t really feel all that different internally than they did in their 20s. That’s true at the ripe old age of 33 for me as well. I feel no different in any real pragmatic sense than I did in high school. I’m more self confident, I have 3 kids, I know that I’m capable of supporting myself, I feel really good about my life…but did something magically change along the way to make me “feel” like I’d finally reach womanhood? Nah, not really.
This is a tough question, Kir.
I don’t know what “manhood” really means to me, since I’ll never experience it myself. I know what qualities I like in a man, or what I find attractive, but that’s something different (in my opinion). I have gone through many women’s “rituals” and rites of passage/change…but I’m still me inside.
I don’t know if you listen to NPR at all, but This American Life had a pretty interesting show about manhood/maleness/masculinity in February (archived here: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1230). I found the story about the guy who went from cool butch lesbian to kinda nerdy guy via testosterone and surgery to be pretty interesting (well, and funny too). If you’ve been thinking about maleness, you might enjoy that whole program, it’s a series of short pieces in the theme.
I feel sorry for men. They are born into this society, with the hormones and equipment to be men - and this society does everything it can to deny them what they are meant to be.
I grew up in the 50’s and could rough and tumble with my brothers when we were kids. However, when it came to junior high and high school, it was clearly evident that they were definitely bigger, stronger, and operated on a different wave length. Were they bad - no. Were they superior - no. They were different and I had to learn to deal with it.
There were no “rights of passage” for boys to men then or in the 40’s, or 30’s or 20’s and earlier, yet men did not suffer from the crisis of not “knowing when they became a man.” What has changed in our culture?
This dilemma that men now face and the desire for a Menaissance, is the direct result of Feminism. The goal was to make women “equal to men” in everything, from the workplace to everywhere in society. For young adults, this took place long before you were born…and you are just living in the wake of it.
The only way to accomplish this, was to take the qualities that exceeded women’ s and remove them. Basically, they took stallions and made them into geldings. This was effectively done by minimizing/trivializing/ridiculing /disrespecting those qualities in men. Look at the difference in how men are portrayed in sitcoms. Bumbling, stupid, selfish, thoughtless stooges in a perpetual state of adolescence who don’t have a clue about anything. And if the only clue they do have…it is sex. How pathetic and unfortunate, that little boys and young men see that as their future or worse yet, what society (women) thinks of them.
So the Female became the new standard for all things (to be politically correct). The Female decided to determine what “a male” is. Since you couldn’t make a 120 pound female physically stronger than a 150 pound guy..you had to lower the requirement. And so you have it in life where women work with men in physical activities where the requirement has been changed and t.v. shows where women can kick ass on guys who are twice their size. Not to mention these women also happen to be so smart and competent - they don’t even need anyone let alone a man. So men take another hit as to their usefulness or what it means to be a man. This lie is now perpetuated and is currently believed by both sexes.
Tragically , most men are considered little more than sperm donors and a paycheck not only by women - but themselves. I have seen young women at work talk about their upcoming wedding, and to hear them talk about the event….you wouldn’t even know there was a groom! All I hear is that it is “Her big day.” What about him? What’s that?
So in order to play this silly game, where both sexes are “equal,” women are subsequently denied the benefit of men who can assist them with their protection, strength and power; and men can not utilize their testosterone or fully express the qualities they naturally posses - which differentiates them as men.
Usually the clueless females in academia, media or some other artificially contrived environment, will immediately start throwing out words like cavemen, slobs, chauvinistic pig or “leaving women without rights” -at the mention of men behaving like “real men” or even considering what value men bring to the table, let alone the damage they have done to them. But they probably haven’t traveled the world or read much of history. Perhaps they have, and just live in denial.
So lets get down to brass tacks.
1. In the real world (anywhere in the world) men are intimidated only by other men. If they want any easy prey with an almost 100% success rate - go after a woman, alone. The only equalizer for a woman is a gun.
In fact, in the saga of human history one of the benefits of war, was carrying off the women as plunder and booty. Think about it - the first thing invading armies do is separate the men from the women/children. Why is that?
So men fought like hell in hand to hand combat and otherwise, to protect their families - immediate and extended. They did the same to bring food to the table. And as a result of that came words like: Bold, courageous, brave, valor, heroic - and dare I say,- Noble.
By God, after seeing your father, brother, or husband or any male go through that - there was no doubt in anyones mind, that you were a man.
You stood for a cause and you fought for that cause. You got respect because you demanded respect and you gave respect.
So in today’s world where does that leave men and Menaissance? I’ll tell you.
For one thing you will have to stop listening to the “talking heads” in media who are perpetuating this lie of the stupid, dumbed down male, or men’s magazines/websites that promote real manhood as the ability to bed as many females as possible. (That just circles back to the sperm donor purpose in life).
It is not your chromosomes, nor how many children you father, or females you have sex with that make you “a man” - but is a designation for those who choose to use their integrity, courage, strength, energies and unselfishness for their families, others and country - who earn it.
And the world awaits.
Great post, Kir and very interesting responses. I would disagree partly that integrity and responsibilty are the signs of male adulthood because they seem to me simply signs of maturity, whether they are qualities present in a man, woman or child. Likewise I would not presume an elderly person lacking in those qualities not to have reached adulthood.
I disagree that the de-glorifying of the masculine over the feminine is why males struggle over the point when they are considered by society and consider themselves to be adults or that being a man is merely a “designation for those who choose to use their integrity, courage, strength, energies and unselfishness for their families, others and country.” What happens when a woman does this–is she less of a woman and more of a man? The 50s values of a male patriarchy clashing with feminism and women’s realization they have more options than birthing and nurturing their husband’s children are not the downfall of the male. Nor is the solution reading Wild at Heart, acting aggressively and making sure women know we’re not kow towing to them anymore.
I think the title of manhood is something that is only properly conferred by a boy’s father to him and adulthood in general–for both men and women–I would define simply as being financially independant. I disagreed “partly” in the first paragraph because I do think that the baby boomer generation, with all of the movements they embodied such as extreme promiscuity, immediate gratification, disestablishment, ulltra cynicism etc and the record setting divorce and litigation rates that followed in that wake among other things led to generation X and Y having the weakest parental, and specifically father figures in perhaps recorded history. That I would argue–the savaging of the family institution is what makes becoming a man so difficult for boys without healthy relationships with their fathers, not the introduction of feminism and women’s equality.
The solution? Find healthy community. Find people you consider wise, learn from them. While I disagree with Red on how manhood is earned, I very much believe it must BE earned.
Wow, thank you for all the responses! It’s given me plenty to think about.
I read all the comments about this topic, and the post you linked a couple days ago. It has all been kind of swirling around in my head, but I can’t quite pin down a complete position on the topic. Lets see if I can put the ideas I did have into a coherent form…
Is the lost “something” that males are noticing in society today caused by the specialized nature of the modern civilization we are part of? The loss of a clear path and place in the world could be linked to the increase in career options with the narrow specialization in the world today. The son of a carpenter or farmer or miller in the not so distant past would likely follow his father’s profession, possibly even working at the same place and living in the same house or town. In the modern world sons do not often have the option to follow in their fathers footsteps. Society tells them to go out into the world and pick their own career goals based on what they want to do. We are told at age 17 or 18 to decide what we want to do for the rest of our lives, go to college for it or head into the workforce. If we ignore the fact that many careers don’t even have a clear path to reach them, just the huge scope of options available is daunting. Perhaps our feeling of being lost starts here, and just gets worse as we blunder around trying to do a job or reach a career goal we are unsure we will even happy in. Of course, this isn’t a male only problem, but it could certainly be contributing to our confusion in the modern world. I suppose more choices sometimes just leads to more ways to be unhappy.
Or, it could be just my current situation coloring my feelings about it.
I’d disagree that manhood is conferred upon by ones’ father. Otherwise over half of males would be considered men when they shave for the first time at age thirteen and their fathers welcome them to being a man. Any definition we give manhood will either exclude a large portion of men, or be so inclusive that the litmus test for manhood is irrelevant.
We may argue the “why”, but we are in a period of redefinition of what manhood is. Just look at how many different ideas there are in this thread alone. No one has any idea of what it is to be a man. There is a reason the Dangerous Book for Boys was the third best selling book on Amazon last year. Men feel like they’ve lost something in modern society.
Ultimately, I’d would argue that manhood isn’t a single event. It isn’t like the movie Big. You don’t go to sleep a boy and wake a man. Manhood is a continual process similar to sanctification. There isn’t some perfect form for being a man that we all works towards. We all work towards manhood in our own ways. Whether thats community leadership, personal integrity, fiscal resonsibility, fighting Nazis or becoming more like this guy, we all reach it differently.
Interesting point. I would agree that manhood is not a single event, and that a father soluting a trivial event marking puberty such as shaving does not make a boy a man any more than a boy taking responsibility for tripping another on the playground or any other host of “adult” behaviors or physical characteristics exhibited by children.
I still hold that manhood is conferred by the father or the substitute in the absense of a father, be it a gang or MTV or whatever else. To clarify conferred I mean a healthy mentor-relationship. Not a slap on the back, keys to the family car event–a relationship at which there is a point when a father figure stops giving his son detailed directions for life because, through relationship, he has determined his son is capable of making those decisions for himself.
In either case, values are transferred from a respected source. When that doesn’t happen as I would argue God intended–from the father–this causes a gamut of psychological and socialogical problems that is exactly what we see reflected in the general cluelessness and bewilderment of the modern male today.
I think I see what you’re saying Throttle. “Manhood” in the cultural sense is an identity that is transmitted from one generation to the next by the institutions of that culture or sub-culture. While this may not be the ideal methodology, this would perhaps be the root of previous gender focused “rites of passage” in other societies.
Perhaps ideally it should be a father-figure that transmits the values that an adult male (i.e. manhood) should embody. Yet, as you mentioned, often these values are transmitted today through peer groups instead. The disillusionment of ‘parents’ from the baby-boomer generation and their own children found a justified disconnection between generations. They recognized something was amiss in their own lives and the lives of their parents.
Our parents found a world with little or no meaning and we saw the emptiness of in them. No longer could we justify a value system solely on the source of the transmission. Too many of these “sources”, i.e. father-figures/mentors, were broken, empty, meaningless or absent entirely.
While we can find meaning from other sources as CJ points out the popularity of such books as the Dangerous Book for Boys struck a note in that the “missing link” many of us feel can be fulfilled with this next generation by our own actions and choices… or sadly perpetuated once more to the next generation as another gap of disconnection.
I am not convinced, however, that this is something we can do all on our own.