Ultimate Manliness

The ultimate manliness is to get married, protect your family, provide for your kids and family, provide a space for them to grow in safety and security, and provide them roles and responsibilities. This is the role of a man; this is what a man does.

Ben Shapiro

REAL Men and REAL Women Needed

Masculinity means creating a family, protecting and defending your wife and children, providing for that wife and children in a responsible way, and building up and defending your community. These are masculine qualities. And societies are infinitely better when men endeavor toward such ideals.

Feminity means a woman who takes care of and comforts her husband, her family, and her children and nurtures the social fabric that binds communities together. 

Unfortunately, As a culture, we've decided that masculine women and effeminate men are amazing, but overtly masculine men and feminine women are terrible. 

When the boundaries that define these traditional roles are blurred, when men take on feminine qualities in droves and women are encouraged to be more masculine, toxic traits emerge that erode the social fabric and lead to cultural decay.

Ben Shapiro, 5/13/23, Facebook post.

Toxic Masculinity?

Agendas Trump Biology and Ruin Men

Britain’s Telegraph recently reported that UK schools are teaching British children that “Trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods” and that “menstruation must be inclusive of all genders.” You read that right.

In the span of 100 years, Britain has gone from producing men who were so eager to fight and die for their country that 16-year-olds lied about their age to enlist when the minimum age was 19, to teaching primary school boys that they can have periods just like girls and offering feminine hygiene products in boys’ bathrooms. This phenomenon isn’t unique to the U.K. U.S. colleges, like the University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, and Brown University offer menstrual products in their men’s rooms, in the name of “menstrual equity” and as a sop to a miniscule “transgender” population.

Can any culture—British, American or any other—raise “rough men” ready to defend it against a ruthless enemy when it cannot even fix in the minds of its developing youth what their sex is?

William F. Marshall, Peter Jackson’s Restored WWI Footage Underscores The Flaccidity Of Today’s Culture

Cheap Sex Makes Men Less Productive

[C]heap sex does not make men more productive. And it will not contribute to their marriageability in an era in which marriage rates are tumbling. Bumeister and Vohs [Sexual Economics] hold that “giving young men easy access to abundant sexual satisfaction deprives society of one of its ways to motivate them to contribute valuable achievements to the culture.”

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.152-153

Men, Think Before You Say to a Woman, “I Love You”

My father counseled his four sons never to say “I love you” to a woman until they were ready to follow immediately with “Will you marry me?” Nor should they think of saying “Will you marry me?” unless they had first said “I love you.” How much pain and confusion would be averted if men followed that rule.

Elisabeth Elliot, Passion & Purity, pg.94

Some Excellent Accomplishments of Youth

But among all accomplishments of youth, there is none preferable to a decent and agreeable behavior among men, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful gravity and good humor, with a mind appearing ever serene under ruffling accidents of human life: add to this, a pleasing solemnity and reverence when the discourse turns upon any thing sacred and divine, a becoming neglect of injuries, a hatred of calumny and slander, a habit of speaking well of others, a pleasing benevolence and readiness to do good to mankind, and special compassion to the miserable; with an air and countenance, in a natural and unaffected manner, expressive of all these excellent qualifications.

Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind: A Supplement to Logic, pg.340

Manhood, Marriage, and Fatherhood

The woman is not only the stabilizing force of male sexuality; she is the authorizing factor in fatherhood. If a particular man desires to be involved in the life of his child, it is the child’s mother, and she alone, who determines whether and how he may do this. His paternity is established by her fiat. She typically desires to make this relationship public by making the father of the child her husband. Anthropologists have called this the legitimization of the child.

Consider the etymology of two key words: matrimony and husband. The first comes from the Latin, matrimonium, meaning literally “obligation to the mother.” Since it is virtually impossible for a mother and her child to thrive by themselves, marriage arose in nearly every civilization throughout time as a way to have the impregnating male take responsibility for his child and the mother. The surrounding community expects the male to fulfill his obligation so it doesn’t have to. It is why marriage is a deeply public act and no society has found a way to function without it.

Thus, the good man steps up, and in doing so, becomes a husband. This stems from the Old Norse, meaning literally house dweller: hús (“house”) bóndi (“dweller” and “bonded serf” or “slave”). The husband settles down and confines himself to a particular household, serving and providing resources for its inhabitants. He becomes a whole other kind of man, taking full responsible for his sexuality and his part in the coming generation.

Glenn Stanton, Manhood Is Not Natural

Male vs. Female Sexuality

[T]he most elemental destabilizing force in every culture is not merely unrefined male energy, but his unchecked sexual energy. Full stop. In its fundamental essence, it is deeply anti-social. It has no civilizing, pro-social nature in itself. To become so, it must be acted upon by other forces. By contrast, female sexual energy tends to be inherently pro-social. Female sexuality has the power to create human civilization by moderating the behavior of men, but it can only do this when there is social appreciation for these differences in male and female sexuality, coupled with the strong social mores they require.

Of course, the dark side of unmoderated male energy goes beyond sexuality. A female's naturally domesticating influence on overall male energy and behavior is easily demonstrated. Who pays substantially lower auto, health, and life insurance premiums, married men or their single peers? Service to the god of equality requires there be no difference here. But we all know better. The wedding-ring-clad man enjoys the financial benefit, and not because insurance companies have a sentimental heart for weddings. Every insurance company knows married men direct their male wanderlust and energy toward safety and responsibility. Single men, not so much. . . . 

Without the essential tempering influence of female sexuality, male sexuality is a whole other animal, and not a pretty one.

This is a problem, because sex makes babies. Every society must give greater attention to this fact than it does to the need for food, shelter, and protection from outside attack. These and all other vital needs are either enhanced or crippled by what a community expects of the relationship between a man, the children he sires, and the woman he does so with. If it doesn’t get this right, few other good things the community needs are likely.

Of course, the male’s attitude and approach toward his procreative act is drastically different from hers. His necessary participation in the act is solely orgasmic, lasting seconds, and is all pleasure. He is not naturally connected to the potential of that act. The mother’s connection, however, is profound, starting shortly after conception and intensifying daily. It costs her dearly in energy, sleep, and overall comfort, starting long before the pain of childbirth. She is inescapably invested. He is not.

In Gilder’s words, “The crucial process of civilization is the subordination of male sexual impulses and biology to the long-term horizons of female sexuality . . . It is male behavior that must be changed to create a civilized order.” The crucial process of civilization. No society can develop or endure without succeeding at this.

Glenn Stanton, Manhood Is Not Natural

Manhood Is Not Natural

As George Gilder explains pointedly in Men and Marriage, “Unlike a woman, a man has no civilized role or agenda inscribed in his body.” The boy has no onboard GPS directing him toward his future. His transition into manhood can only come into being with significant, intentional work by other men. As a behavior, manhood must be learned, proven, and earned. As an identity, manhood must be bestowed by a boy’s father and the community’s larger fraternity of men. His mother can only affirm it. She cannot bequeath it.

Maleness just happens, but manhood does not. The first is a biological event, while the second is a developed character quality. When manhood is not formed and cultivated, males fail to mature, resulting in the “perpetual adolescence” or “failure to launch” that plagues our culture. When so many men play beer pong into their forties, live in their parents’ basements, play videogames twelve hours a day, and encounter women only in the form of pixels on a porn site, it seems clear that we have a manhood problem.

The human male nature doesn’t naturally go in the direction civilization requires; it requires the direction of other men. . . . 

Manhood must be crafted and refined in order to orient males in pro-social, communitarian directions. In fact, this is the first work of every civilization. Anthropologists tell us that the original and most fundamental social problem of any culture is the unattached male. Left to his own, he is not inclined to play well with others. He is not disposed to make himself, or anyone around him, a better person. He is not likely to become other-focused. Either fiercely competitive or indolent, he is more likely to become a social contagion. He will either seek to define himself in the community by power, false confidence, and selfish conquest, or shrink away toward inactivity and reticence. . . .

[A]cross virtually all cultures, manhood has largely consisted of three essential qualities: procreation, provision, and protection. If the boy doesn’t learn these things, then he is not likely to become a good, selfless, serving man. Shame and derision from the community will become his lot. As Mead explains, “this behavior, being learned, is fragile and can disappear rather easily under social conditions that no longer teach it effectively.” Such domestic education can disappear within a generation. Tragically, manhood is becoming extinct because we are not teaching it.

Glenn Stanton, Manhood Is Not Natural

What Is Our Life For?

What is our life for?  Why do we work?  If Christians cannot remember the answers, then we are lost indeed.  Work is not something you are supposed to balance against the claims of your family.  Unless you are one of those few whose talents are required in a broad way for the common good of multitudes, if you are not working in the first instance for your family, then something is severely out of order.

Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, pg.128

The Necessity of Patriarchy

If you do not raise men to be fathers—not just progenitors of children, but fathers in the full sense implied by a phrase like “city fathers”—they will not therefore become compliant and gentle mothers.  They will either drag out their days in ennui and desperation or go very bad, very fast.  Nor will they lack for women, and plenty of them too, who will be attracted to the dangerous man, the rebel, the leader of the gang.  The alternative to rule by fathers, which is what patriarchy means, is male domination in the form of a police state or in the persons of men outside the law.

Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, pg.103-104

Manhood and Womanhood

A girl grows into womanhood more naturally than a boy grows into manhood, because the potential for motherhood is expressed so obviously in the form of her body; it cannot be missed.  A girl who climbs trees with her brothers and plays ball will naturally and easily turn towards more womanly pursuits as those brothers surpass her in bulk and strength, and as her own body grows less fit for the boyish things.  That is why female athletes sometimes take drugs to suppress the working of the natural hormones in their bodies; or the sports themselves suppress the hormones, as when female long distance runners lose so much of their natural fat that they no longer menstruate.  Their bodies “judge” that they are not fit to conceive and bear and care for a child, exactly as if they were starving.

But the boy must be made into a man; nor is it true, once he has established himself as a man, he need never worry about it again.  Manhood is risky.  It must be publicly affirmed, and you can lose that affirmation by cowardice or effeminacy.  See the movie Four Feathers.  See the old Western Branded.  Which cultures have recognized these truths?  Every single one of them but ours.

Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, pg.97

How to Get a Job and Keep One

There are only three job skills necessary to find and keep an entry-level job; none of these skills can be taught by government programs. First, show up regularly and on time. Second, obey instructions. Third, keep quiet. These are character attributes and can only be acquired from parents and family who care. Anybody obeying these three rules in America can obtain an entry-level job and keep it. By keeping the position, one quickly becomes trained and worth more to an employer. At that point, the potential inconvenience and expense of finding and training a new employee is countered by the employer raising the wage of his worker. The investment of his time during the first six months at one employer has made him more valuable in this position than a newcomer could be. Thus our fortunate American newcomer to the job market finds himself on the economic escalator. 

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "America's Real War," pg.250

The Weapon of the Mind

Not Many Gentlemen Left

HT Speculative Fiction