Manliness in the west

[DrZoidberg]

There's a bit in this talk that I thought might do better as a separate thread.

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?12081-Jordan-Petersen-vs-Camille-Paglia

Peterson and Paglia talk a lot about gender roles. At one point they speculate on that part of the appeal of Islam is that they have very clear roles for men and women.

That made me think some more. I'm a man. Growing up, figuring out what a man was, was very hard. What were my duties. What wasn't I allowed to do to other men, to other girls, what was I allowed to do. It sure would have been nice with some firm guidance.

My father was an extremely manly man. Certainly physically. But too mentally weak to be anything to look up to. That made me a bit lost. It was also the 90'ies when the coolest thing you could be was bisexual. I think I was the generation that grew up directly after the sexual and feminist revolutions. My generations parents experimented like crazy. A common method of raising children for my parents generation was to do nothing. Just love them unconditionally and support them no matter. That means, not to criticise them. For me that just meant lots of insecurity.

The generation afterwards, the millennials, is a heightened version of this. But instead of doing nothing, their parents protect them from all evils, and unconditionally love and support them, no matter what. I think that generation is even more lost than my generation.

Being a man in the 70'ies was the same as being a man at any time before this. You just needed to say that you supported women's rights. But very little actually changed. Being a man in the 80'ies was much like being a man before that. But now the male body was also sexually objectified.

Then the 90'ies happened. And the male role got radically altered. I'm also from Sweden, where the changes were arguably more extreme than at other places.

Manliness became equated with being a threat. Machismo was laughed at. The less manly you were the better man you were. But of course, sexually things stayed the same. Not that anybody told the young men this. Very confusing. I've lost track of all the militant feminists who have asked me to slap in them in the face or spank them.

Sorry for being long winded. But did we lose something along the way?

I'm sorry if I sound apologetic for Islam. I'm not. I think western embrace of homosexuality and alternative lifestyles is great. And we should continue to do so. But have we embraced these at the expense of something?

 

[Bronzeage]

As with all things, there is seldom a perfect alignment with substance and image. For example, your statement "A common method of raising children for my parents generation was to do nothing." That can't possibly be true, because here you are, with your pants zipped and your shirt buttoned. Buttoning and zipping are not obvious processes.

For lack if a better definition, manliness is the attributes of a man that others find attractive or desirable. There are many aspects of manliness, simply because the world has so many diverse needs, and beyond that, tastes and fashion are fickle. Children learn by observing and imitating and this creates patterns which will mold behavior well into old age. When my children were young, there were many times I heard my father's voice, and I realized it was me who was talking. For better or worse, my manliness is modeled on his. Fortunately for the world, he was the strong, but gentle and wise type of man.

After allowing for the vagaries of fashion, and having lived through it, I can say, being a man in the past 6 decades has not changed a great deal. Before that, I can only speculate. Since the industrial revolution, the vital necessity of some manly aspects has lessened by a good bit. In many parts of the world, it's possible to live well without a man in ones life, which is to say, without a partner of either sex. This is only because there is a hidden army of men and women who are working hard to provide food, shelter, and clothing, for us.

The only time we see old time manliness these days, is in places where the veneer of the industrial world has burned and peeled off. That is when we see men(and women) go into manly mode and attempt to move their families toward safety. They face gunfire and drowning, in the 21st century. Thousands of years ago, it was starvation and drowning, but the effect is the same.

 

[Phil Scott]

I listened to a bit, and got the impression that the word "man" was being conflated with "construction worker."

 

[fromderinside]

OH. Eric Hoffer then.

 

[rousseau]

I don't know if man's role in society, developed over hundreds of thousands of years, can really change much in a couple of decades.

I don't think being a man is as much about 'manliness' as it is ability to support one's partner or family, by whatever means. This might mean strength, but moreover it usually means intelligence within the context of one's community.

Men who have the ability to kill buffalo, write a good resume, find a job, make good financial decisions. Those are the ones most likely to find a partner and have children.

The one thing I would say though, is that in the last hundred years many Western countries have gone from industrial economies to knowledge economies. So in, say, 1920 you might find prestige from a trade, which requires more physicality, these days prestige comes from more social/intellectual jobs.

 

[DrZoidberg]

As with all things, there is seldom a perfect alignment with substance and image. For example, your statement "A common method of raising children for my parents generation was to do nothing." That can't possibly be true, because here you are, with your pants zipped and your shirt buttoned. Buttoning and zipping are not obvious processes.

With do nothing, I mean, offer no guidance. They didn't want to influence their children with the corrupting ideas of their generation. They wanted us to be truly free to express ourselves. I think these people read Catcher in the Rye as if it was a sacred text.

For lack if a better definition, manliness is the attributes of a man that others find attractive or desirable. There are many aspects of manliness, simply because the world has so many diverse needs, and beyond that, tastes and fashion are fickle. Children learn by observing and imitating and this creates patterns which will mold behavior well into old age. When my children were young, there were many times I heard my father's voice, and I realized it was me who was talking. For better or worse, my manliness is modeled on his. Fortunately for the world, he was the strong, but gentle and wise type of man.

Sure. But that explanation falls a bit flat unless we explain, why it's attractive or desirable. I forget who said it (Karen Barad?), that from a biological point of view most men are unnecessary. Men have to prove themselves in a way women don't. Well... they do. They need to have babies. But men are always under a lot of pressure to be useful. That's why they/we take more risks. Feel a greater need to prove themselves, and so on. I don't want to give the impression that women aren't under a lot of pressure.

But just take the thing about the male taboo of hitting a woman. It's an extremely strong taboo everywhere. Why? Because using violence to get their way, is biologically programmed into men. Sure, it's good if it can be avoided. But men always know that if they behave badly there's always the threat of violence from other men. That acts to regulate male behavior, as well as male violence. Women, on the other hand know that they can behave atrociously to men and probably be safe. If men would behave like women in relationships they'd get punched in the face.

BTW, there's research into homosexual relationships that is interesting. There's theories that gay men are biologically programmed with female behaviours. While gay women are biologically programmed with male behaviours. Well... physical domestic violence is common in lesbian relationships. It's to a point where it's problematic. This is a mystery, unless we bring in the biologically programming.

BTW, Camillia Paglia identifies as a transgendered man (so born a woman but feels like a man). She also identifies as a lesbian. It's so nice when ideas come from a direction that completely disarms the identity politics crowd.

After allowing for the vagaries of fashion, and having lived through it, I can say, being a man in the past 6 decades has not changed a great deal. Before that, I can only speculate. Since the industrial revolution, the vital necessity of some manly aspects has lessened by a good bit. In many parts of the world, it's possible to live well without a man in ones life, which is to say, without a partner of either sex. This is only because there is a hidden army of men and women who are working hard to provide food, shelter, and clothing, for us.

The only time we see old time manliness these days, is in places where the veneer of the industrial world has burned and peeled off. That is when we see men(and women) go into manly mode and attempt to move their families toward safety. They face gunfire and drowning, in the 21st century. Thousands of years ago, it was starvation and drowning, but the effect is the same.

Well.. we've gone from an agrarian society, to an industrial society, to an information age society... really quickly. We've had revolutionary and dramatic changes in a very short time. Of course manliness needs to be redefined, because what is considered useful in one age, isn't in an other. Today physical strength is less important than being in control.

But changing the idea of manliness isn't the same thing as claiming that men and women are the same, or that it's all free choice.

 

[bigfield]

My personal experience as a Millennial is that one has to ignore everything contemporary mainstream society has to say about masculinity. Popular culture's male ideals are toxic.

My favourite role model from film is [YOUTUBE]John Winger[/YOUTUBE] (Bill Murray) in Stripes, which was made five years before I was born.

But did we lose something along the way?

21st century pop culture has developed some fucked-up ideas about male sex appeal, and healthy male role models are rare.

ETA:

The generation afterwards, the millennials, is a heightened version of this. But instead of doing nothing, their parents protect them from all evils, and unconditionally love and support them, no matter what. I think that generation is even more lost than my generation.

Look at mainstream culture today. How does it construct positive masculinity? My impression is that mainstream culture is trying to sell a new kind of feminised masculinity, like this:

All hail the rise of cat men, an antidote to toxic masculinity
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-11/the-rise-of-cat-men-antidote-to-toxic-masculinity/8082618

These men are nice, and nice is good, but these middle-class softcocks are never going to replace the hard-edged men who, as Paglia and Peterson say, built Western society.

 

[rousseau]

My personal experience as a Millennial is that one has to ignore everything contemporary mainstream society has to say about masculinity. Popular culture's male ideals are toxic.

My favourite role model from film is [YOUTUBE]John Winger[/YOUTUBE] (Bill Murray) in Stripes, which was made five years before I was born.

Popular culture's ideals are toxic in general.

Be extroverted, be fun, have as many friends as you can, be beautiful, don't be serious, don't read, don't learn. Pretty much a guide-book on how to fail at life, unless you get by via networking with other people like you.

 

[James Brown]

I like this site. Brett McKay has covered a lot on this topic.

Art of Manliness

and his article, "What is Manliness?"

The historian and sociologist Lewis Mumford said, “Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.”

 

[fromderinside]

....except those that don't which are most generations.

Gads. Most lives of sons are completely different from their dad's. I was raised in a suburban society raised by a dad who was raised in a rural society. He chose suburban out of necessity since when he reached manhood the depression hit. He wasn't really prepared so living in the new culture was very stressful. He needed his time to commune with nature, to farm, even though he chose to be an engineer in the electrical and atomic industries.

I now live, a retiree, in a rural culture. My current demands are more like my dad's training whilst my maturing demands were more like my dad's. We share values, his in my memory, mine out in front of my family. My kids say my bride and I were the strictest parents they know which is probably true since we emphasized personal responsibility and caring for others above all else in a suburban society where relativism often reigns.

So I'm not buying the pablum of those who say generational closeness leads to greater differentiation such as identifying with grandparents.

My grand parents, one set from Scandinavia and the other from the source of the Missouri, both rural cold harsh climes, were as alike as peas in a pod as are we all in the final analysis, even when perturbed by the addition of Italian rural traditions imposed on our children.

 

[Bronzeage]

With do nothing, I mean, offer no guidance. They didn't want to influence their children with the corrupting ideas of their generation. They wanted us to be truly free to express ourselves. I think these people read Catcher in the Rye as if it was a sacred text.

For lack if a better definition, manliness is the attributes of a man that others find attractive or desirable. There are many aspects of manliness, simply because the world has so many diverse needs, and beyond that, tastes and fashion are fickle. Children learn by observing and imitating and this creates patterns which will mold behavior well into old age. When my children were young, there were many times I heard my father's voice, and I realized it was me who was talking. For better or worse, my manliness is modeled on his. Fortunately for the world, he was the strong, but gentle and wise type of man.

Sure. But that explanation falls a bit flat unless we explain, why it's attractive or desirable. I forget who said it (Karen Barad?), that from a biological point of view most men are unnecessary. Men have to prove themselves in a way women don't. Well... they do. They need to have babies. But men are always under a lot of pressure to be useful. That's why they/we take more risks. Feel a greater need to prove themselves, and so on. I don't want to give the impression that women aren't under a lot of pressure.

But just take the thing about the male taboo of hitting a woman. It's an extremely strong taboo everywhere. Why? Because using violence to get their way, is biologically programmed into men. Sure, it's good if it can be avoided. But men always know that if they behave badly there's always the threat of violence from other men. That acts to regulate male behavior, as well as male violence. Women, on the other hand know that they can behave atrociously to men and probably be safe. If men would behave like women in relationships they'd get punched in the face.

BTW, there's research into homosexual relationships that is interesting. There's theories that gay men are biologically programmed with female behaviours. While gay women are biologically programmed with male behaviours. Well... physical domestic violence is common in lesbian relationships. It's to a point where it's problematic. This is a mystery, unless we bring in the biologically programming.

BTW, Camillia Paglia identifies as a transgendered man (so born a woman but feels like a man). She also identifies as a lesbian. It's so nice when ideas come from a direction that completely disarms the identity politics crowd.

After allowing for the vagaries of fashion, and having lived through it, I can say, being a man in the past 6 decades has not changed a great deal. Before that, I can only speculate. Since the industrial revolution, the vital necessity of some manly aspects has lessened by a good bit. In many parts of the world, it's possible to live well without a man in ones life, which is to say, without a partner of either sex. This is only because there is a hidden army of men and women who are working hard to provide food, shelter, and clothing, for us.

The only time we see old time manliness these days, is in places where the veneer of the industrial world has burned and peeled off. That is when we see men(and women) go into manly mode and attempt to move their families toward safety. They face gunfire and drowning, in the 21st century. Thousands of years ago, it was starvation and drowning, but the effect is the same.

Well.. we've gone from an agrarian society, to an industrial society, to an information age society... really quickly. We've had revolutionary and dramatic changes in a very short time. Of course manliness needs to be redefined, because what is considered useful in one age, isn't in an other. Today physical strength is less important than being in control.

But changing the idea of manliness isn't the same thing as claiming that men and women are the same, or that it's all free choice.

The non-guidance you received from your parents was guidance. They did not hammer you into a mold, and were thus guided away from molds. Childhood is not a vacuum.

I have to agree that most men are unnecessary. I certainly have more in my life than I need at any one time. Seriously, what is this bullshit? Life is not a clockwork where everything moves in time with other parts and every piece has a function. Humans are made from two different kinds of cells and then squeezed out into the world. Humans are messy bags of meat. There is nothing in us which is nearly as neat as a clockwork.

Men and women do not form partnerships which make life easier for both because they feel an obligation to perpetuate the species. They form partnerships because they like one another. Since a solitary partnership is a contradiction in terms, neither can be unnecessary.

But what of manliness? A woman who finds men attractive, will find some men more attractive than others. If there is a way to explain or predict what this means in practice, I have yet to discover it. When I met the woman who is my current wife, she was less impressed by the fact I could bench press her, than she was when she discovered the books on my shelves were arranged by subject. I had spent all that time in the gym and the deciding factor was something I had done with no thought of attracting a mate.

What this means in the real world is manliness is in the eye of the person who wants a man, and the man has less control over this than he might wish, and certainly less control then he imagines he has. Any attempt to define general manliness in any more precision is futile because manliness is only applied in the specific.

 

[rousseau]

Bronzeage once said on this forum, 'the purpose of a man is to fill in the gap'.

Simple words but something that's stuck with me since I first heard it. Strong men are givers, not takers. They make the lives of the people around them easier, not harder. And if they don't have the energy to give, they at least don't take.

This goes hand in hand with the article that James Brown posted above in that being a strong man is about striving for excellence, and leaving child-hood behind. But more than that, I still believe that a big part of man's role is to be a provider.

At this point in time, an overwhelming number of men out-earn their wives. I don't think this is solely due to earning potential, but also mate selection. Women usually choose men who bring their social standing upward. Maybe it sounds sexist, but I believe there is something primal about this. Averaged out, members of a man's family will at least expect him to help provide their needs, if not provide the majority of them.

And so at a base level, for a man to attract a partner, he needs to be able to at least help support her. And for the relationship to be really and truly successful he has to be genuinely and sincerely giving toward her.

You can be a lot of things, but the sure fire way to earn respect is to put your neck out for other people, rather than being a leech.

*Noting that this is a hetero-normative post, and not applicable to male-male relationships

 

[Malintent]

Disappointed this thread wasn't about cowboys.