Where Have The Good Men Gone?

Where Have The Good Men Gone?

An interesting article brought to my attention by blogger Brett Mckay at the Art of Manliness. (His response to the article can be found here.) There are many excellent points that I agree with in the article. Towards the end, however, it devolves from a relatively accurate critique of maledom in modern society, to, well... a roast at best. The article is quick to point out flaws, and slow to offer solutions.

And the tone of the article is readily apparent at the outset. One glance at the graphic splashed across the top of the page makes it clear what the author thinks of American males.

There are two things I find inherently fascinating about this article. One, is the blatantly chauvinistic perspective. Because that's what it is. Go through, and read the article. Now go through, and read the article again, but reverse all the gender specific words, woman for man, man for woman, etc. You'll see exactly what I mean.

The premise of the article starts out that there has been a drastic decline in the expectations for young men, that manhood is in disarray, is currently juvenile, etc. Yet, it goes on to speak of the irrelevance of manhood in modern society. No, not in so many words, but the intent is there. Quoted from the article:

What explains this puerile shallowness? I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It's been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.

Fortitude is irrelevant? Courage is irrelevant? Fidelity is irrelevant? The author slams the state of young men's maturity compared to men of old, then goes right on to slam her comparative point of reference. Indeed, I wish I could ask the author, what is a good man then? Currently, my generation (according to the author) is writhing in irrelevant depravity. Yet, those role models we think of when we think of 'manhood' and 'manly values', we immediately write off as irrelevant as relics of the past. Indeed the whole tone of the article seems to be that of the dominance of woman. It might be summed of as, "Men wallow in irrelevance like pigs because, well, they are."


What a sad, and dare I say sexist, view of society.


My second major problem with the article can be found in the above quote. Since when are virtues like fortitude, courage, and fidelity irrelevant? It makes me wonder what other virtues she might have written off. What about honesty? Is that an irrelevant relic of the past? How embarrassing is duty? Should we hide any sense of honor we have under the rug? 


While the overall conclusion of the article I find as fruitless criticism offering no solutions, the writing off of virtues as 'obsolete, even a little embarrassing' I think is down right shameful. Virtues are wholly relevant today, to men and women. We should be encourage a virtuous, industrious society in both men and women, not damning virtues as embarrassing. Virtues that have been revered by mankind literally for thousands of years.

We shouldn't be ashamed to claim a virtuous manhood, and strive toward that goal. We should be ashamed to write off the current generation of young men as irrelevant, to leave them to wallow. We should be ashamed, because instead of trying to revive honorable manhood in America, we allow manhood itself to wallow.

But perhaps we can't do that because shame is something that's obsolete, and just a little too embarrassing to acknowledge.

The Perpetual Adolescent

An interesting article in the Weekly Standard that actually dates back to March 15, 2004. It was recently brought to my attention by the Art of Manliness blog by Brett McKay. It covers manhood, maturity, the 'man boy' attitude of today's male youth (though it doesn't use that term), and how, in our youth culture in America, we are seemingly incapable of separating physical youth and energy from emotional and mental maturity. It's a long one, at seven pages, but it'll repay you in dividends. Stay with it, its worth it. Some excerpts below:

"WHENEVER ANYONE under the age of 50 sees old newsreel film of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak of 1941, he is almost certain to be brought up by the fact that nearly everyone in the male-dominated crowds--in New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland--seems to be wearing a suit and a fedora or other serious adult hat. The people in those earlier baseball crowds, though watching a boyish game, nonetheless had a radically different conception of themselves than most Americans do now. A major depression was ending, a world war was on. Even though they were watching an entertainment that took most of them back to their boyhoods, they thought of themselves as adults, no longer kids, but grown-ups, adults, men.

[snip]

The increasing affluence the United States enjoyed after World War II, extending into the current day, also contributed heavily to forming the character I've come to think of as the perpetual American adolescent. Earlier, with less money around, people were forced to get serious, to grow up--and fast. How quickly the Depression generation was required to mature! How many stories one used to hear about older brothers going to work at 18 or earlier, so that a younger brother might be allowed to go to college, or simply to help keep the family afloat! With lots of money around, certain kinds of pressure were removed. More and more people nowadays are working, as earlier generations were not, with a strong safety net of money under them. All options opened, they now swim in what Kierkegaard called "a sea of possibilities," and one of these possibilities in America is to refuse to grow up for a longer period than has been permitted any other people in history.

[snip]

Two of the great television sitcom successes of recent years, "Seinfeld" and "Friends," though each is different in its comic tone, are united by the theme of the permanent adolescent loose in the big city. One takes the characters in "Seinfeld" to be in their middle to late thirties, those in "Friends" in their late twenties to early thirties. Charming though they may be, both sets of characters are oddly stunted. They aren't quite anywhere and don't seem to be headed anywhere, either. Time is suspended for them. Aimless and shameless, they are in the grip of the everyday Sturm und Drang of adolescent self-absorption. Outside their rather temporary-looking apartments, they scarcely exist. Personal relations provide the full drama of their lives. Growth and development aren't part of the deal. They are still, somehow, in spirit, locked in a high school of the mind, eating dry cereal, watching a vast quantity of television, hoping to make ecstatic sexual scores. Apart from the high sheen of the writing and the comic skill of the casts, I wonder if what really attracts people to these shows--"Friends" still, "Seinfeld" in its reruns--isn't the underlying identification with the characters because of the audience's own longing for a perpetual adolescence, cut loose, free of responsibility, without the real pressures that life, that messy business, always exerts.

[snip]

The old model for ambition was solid hard work that paid off over time. One began at a low wage, worked one's way up through genuine accomplishment, grew wealthier as one grew older, and, with luck, retired with a sense of financial security and pleasure in one's achievement. But the new American ambition model features the kid multimillionaire--the young man or woman who breaks the bank not long out of college. An element of adolescent impatience enters in here--I want it, now!--and also an element of continued youthfulness.

The model of the type may be the professional athlete. "The growth of professional basketball over the past twenty-odd years, from a relatively minor spectator sport to a mass-cultural phenomenon," notes Rebecca Mead, in the New Yorker, "is an example of the way in which all of American culture is increasingly geared to the tastes of teenage boys." 

[snip]

Self-esteem, of which one currently hears so much, is at bottom another essentially adolescent notion. The great psychological sin of our day is to violate the self-esteem of adolescents of all ages. One might have thought that such self-esteem as any of us is likely to command would be in place by the age of 18. (And what is the point of having all that much self-esteem anyhow, since its logical culminating point can only be smug complacence?) Even in nursing homes, apparently, patients must be guarded against a feeling of their lowered consequence in the world. Self-esteem has become a womb to tomb matter, so that, in contemporary America, the inner and the outer child can finally be made one in the form of the perpetual adolescent.

[snip]

The greatest sins, Santayana thought, are those that set out to strangle human nature. This is of course what is being done in cultivating perpetual adolescence, while putting off maturity for as long as possible. Maturity provides a more articulated sense of the ebb and flow, the ups and downs, of life, a more subtly reticulated graph of human possibility. Above all, it values a clear and fit conception of reality. Maturity is ever cognizant that the clock is running, life is finite, and among the greatest mistakes is to believe otherwise. Maturity doesn't exclude playfulness or high humor. Far from it. The mature understand that the bitterest joke of all is that the quickest way to grow old lies in the hopeless attempt to stay forever young."

Written by Joe Epstein. My God, this man is brilliant.

Being Virtuous: Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues of Life | The Art of Manliness

An excerpt from the Art of Manliness blog, an older article I stumbled upon while perusing the site that I find very interesting.

Being Virtuous: Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues of Life | The Art of Manliness: "For the past 13 weeks, The Art of Manliness has been running a series entitled “The Virtuous Life.” Each week we took a look at each one of Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues and how men could implement them in their life.

Today “virtue” has taken on soft and effeminate connotations. But originally, the word “virtue” was inextricably connected to what it meant to be a true man. The word comes from the Latin virtus, which in turn is derived from vir, Latin for “manliness.” These days guys excuse their lack of virtue by hiding behind the excuse of being “just a guy.” Men need to do better and strive to improve themselves each day. It’s time to restore the tie between manliness and virtue.

What follows is a summary of the entire series with links to each virtue. We hope you found the series helpful and will revisit it in the future for inspiration.

Let’s get started."

Essentially, the article goes on to discuss how Franklin decided to attempt to achieve a perfect morality. He set out upon the venture at the ripe old age of... twenty! At an age when most Americans are waking up blissfully unaware of their weekend binging in college, Franklin was contemplating how he might discover the perfect morality and apply it to his own life. To this end, he developed a list of thirteen virtues that he might live his life by. The virtues are listed below and taken from a different AoM blog post found here.

---

1. “TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
2. “SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
3. “ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
4. “RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
5. “FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
6. “INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
7. “SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”
8. “JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
9. “MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
10. “CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
11. “TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
12. “CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
13. “HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

Do note that the AoM blog has a full post dedicated to each virtue, and I strongly encourage the read. It is very much worth the time investment!

He then went on to place these virtues in a chart that he could carry with him, whereby he might track his actions throughout the day and, at the end of a day, put a tick by each of the virtues he felt he violated throughout the day, thence trying to minimize the marks daily and live a more virtuous life. (Being a printer gave him an infinite supply of these pages, which, at the time, I suppose was much to his benefit given circumstances of technology and circulation of printed materials.) An example of what it looked like below:

(I snagged the gif from this website, which is linked in the initial AoM post if anyone is interested.)

You notice that at the top of the chart, the work industry and his brief description is present. That is because each week, he would pick a different virtue to focus on throughout the week, disciplining himself in one particular virtue for an extended period of time while, simultaneously, working on all. 

On more excerpt from the second AoM post:

While Franklin never accomplished his goal of moral perfection, and had some notable flaws (womanizing and his love of beer probably gave him problems with chastity and temperance), he felt he benefited from the attempt at it.

Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.

I find the whole article and concept fascinating. We, as a society, don't seem to have many virtues that we regard highly, nor do we spend any time in a child's education stressing virtues for fear that we might offend someone's sensibilities on the state dollar. As a result, we are rarely a society of virtues.

We are a society of laws. However, this is a far cry from a society of virtues. Laws are enforced upon you, virtues are taken upon oneself.

After reading through these, I felt that I should, in some fashion, take the 'Franklin challenge' of sorts onto myself. I may, in fact, simply find a means to carry around a similar journal. Perhaps an exact copy of what he has used himself. Regardless, I very much think it shall become a goal of mine. It is perhaps an audacious endeavor to undertake, but I can think of few endeavors more noble and worthy of the effort.

The question that presents itself to me is, should I choose the same thirteen virtues? Should I add more? Focus on fewer, but to a greater extent? Perhaps trade in some for others? How would I decided which are more or less worthy of attention? More or less relevant to my life and shortcomings as a man?

This will probably become a project of mine. I fully expect more posts in the future about it. Maybe pictures of whatever form my journal takes as well. Comments or suggestions are more than welcome!

"The Menaissance" by Brett McKay

I can't remember exactly how I found this video, but I felt it very near and dear to me and the kind of person I strive to be. My girlfriend agreed.



Brett McKay, as he stated, runs the blog the Art of Manliness. For any old fashioned man, it's interesting, if not insightful, and covers a plethora of subjects.