This is the time of year to turn our thoughts to noble sentiments and inspiring stories. William Bennett, who has established something of a cottage industry in uplift, has a new book out that celebrates and explicates all that is bracing, wholesome, affecting, and necessary about men and manliness
In 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work.
In 1970, 80 percent of 25 to 29-year-old men were married and in 2007 only 40 percent were.
In American colleges, for every two men who graduate with a bachelor of arts degree, three women receive a BA. Women now dominate 13 of the 15 job categories expected to grow the most in the coming decade.
Many men no longer seem to know — because our society is confused — what it means to be a good man, or a “mensch,” the Yiddish word that conveys reliability, honesty, and a big heart. The code of the gentleman — particularly where women are concerned — has long since been declared obsolete, if not a thought crime.
This collection attempts a corrective, offering examples and exemplars of manliness from antiquity to the present. Through poems, letters (such affecting letters!), profiles, news accounts, and testaments of various kinds, The Book of Man presents men in the spectrum of life’s arenas: at war, at work, at play, “in the polis” or public life, with women and children, and in prayer and reflection. Along the way, the question “What does it mean to be a good man?” is beautifully illuminated.
James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888), an American theologian and essayist, limned the distinctions between true and false manliness. His essay is a particularly interesting glimpse of the 19th-century ideal, since 20th-century feminism has worked so hard to persuade us that the “patriarchy” taught men to be tyrants and emotional stiffs.
[Manliness] expresses the qualities which go to make a perfect man — truth, courage, conscience, freedom, energy, self-possession, self-control. But it does not exclude gentleness, tenderness, compassion, modesty. A man is not less manly, but more so, because he is gentle. . . . The manly spirit shows itself in enterprise, the love of meeting difficulties and overcoming them — the resolution that will not yield.
A false notion of manliness leads boys astray. All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues.
The 19th century had no monopoly on manliness, however, and one of the most enriching portraits in The Book of Man is that of David Gelernter, the computer scientist, professor, artist, and social critic who was badly wounded by the Unabomber. This excerpt from a magazine profile focuses not on Gelernter’s scientific achievements (he has many computer breakthroughs to his credit), nor on his personal courage in overcoming his injuries from the letter bomb (it nearly killed him). Rather, it stresses his role as husband and father. Gelernter and his wife, in a countercultural act, are raising their sons to be chivalrous gentlemen. A man’s role with respect to women, Gelernter argues, “is to protect, to help, to support, [and] to cherish — as opposed to consume. We are a consumer society and the number one consumption is that of women.”
“Women,” he continues, “have an urge to nurture and cherish children; men don’t have that, but they can substitute an urge to nurture and cherish women. Men need to turn their sexual interest into something that goes deeper, emotionally and spiritually.”
Boys have always needed guidance about what it means to be manly. But ours is an age when men are shirking fatherhood in alarming numbers. One of every four American children under the age of 18 now lives without his father, a tripling of the rate since 1960. Men can be lectured and cajoled into meeting their responsibilities, but it’s also clarifying to hear from Teddy Roosevelt (a man’s man if ever there was one):
“It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful businessman . . . or farmer, or a successful lawyer, or doctor, or a writer, or a president, or a ranchman . . . or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.”
Of course there is a very simple way for "men to be men again". If women actually started to treat us as if we were worthy human beings in our own right. Or I'll even take if they stopped treating us as potential donors or paychecks. Men definitely try to use and manipulate women and that needs to change. But women also use the fact that men find them so lovely to use and manipulate men.
I was born in 1968. My life almost entirely coincides with the radical feminist campaign to devalue men and the *countless* beneficial contributions men have made to society in general and to women's well-being in particular. By the time I went to college in the late 80's I was constantly receiving messages--both implicit and extremely explicit--about how worthless I was as a male (not a "Man", which was a word only used for derogatory joking). The best response--according to this radical view--was for the man to hang his head in shame at his eternal and unforgivable "crimes" against the wholesome superiority of women. This is a cultural catastrophe of the first order. One that a certain segment of women have played the leading role.
Women often get in men what they reward in men. You reap what you sow.
Both the word "virtue" and the word "virile" descend from the Latin "vir" for man. Chivalry and all the medieval ideal meant is an iindispensible part of a true and complete man.
"But it does not exclude gentleness, tenderness, compassion, modesty. A man is not less manly, but more so, because he is gentle"
I have said this (but not so well) to my liberal friends and been scoffed at in return. My argument usually arises when they urge someone or other to "get in touch with their feminine side" or congratulate someone on doing so.
I usually respond that I don't have a feminine side. Gentleness and compassion are not the sole province of the feminine. Of course, many of them scoff a second time when I turn the tables and suggest that women should get in touch with their masculine side. They seem to not understand, or not acknowledge, the inherent value in manliness.
“Women,” he continues, “have an urge to nurture and cherish children; men don’t have that, but they can substitute an urge to nurture and cherish women."
Maybe none of the men in your life have the ability to nurture and cherish young people. Don't presume to speak for me, or my father, or the other nurturing, cherishing fathers I have known. Who deserve far more respect than the "man" who made this comment can comprehend.
“Women,” he continues, “have an urge to nurture and cherish children; men don’t have that, but they can substitute an urge to nurture and cherish women."
Maybe none of the men in your life have the ability to nurture and cherish young people. Don't presume to speak for me, or my father, or the other nurturing, cherishing fathers I have known. Who deserve far more respect than the "man" who made this comment can comprehend.
While it is nice to encourage a return to manliness, I find most authors and columnists miss the point. The act of being a gentleman will not be achieved until it is appreciated.
As said in the article many things a gentleman would do is nearly seen as a thought crime anymore. Not to mention few will care or look out of a man who does so.
A man who cares for a woman, who looks out for and shows compassion will be taken advantage of nowadays. The wife would run roughshod over him, not appreciate him.
Until you fix the ladies to show some caring and respect towards men, you will never find gentlemen coming back in any great number.
This is spot-on. Too bad most of the other comments here seem to be from the same generation as Ms. Charen.
Try being a chivalrous gentleman in search of a real long-term relationship in high school or college these days. You'll be used for your kindness and labeled "boring" and "nice." It would be awesome if everything in this article was true, but idealism is no substitute for reality.
It is oppressive to set upon people a prescription of how to act based on their sex.
Here, it is either done in a naive or beguiling manner, since this essay simply extols virtues, and impresses upon the reader the social deficit in this area. I quite agree, we should all strive to be better individuals - improve ourselves, not just materially but spiritually - but (and here's my key objection) there's ~nothing~ gender-specific about that message!
Why would we not want the attributes of maturity and goodness lauded above to become goals for young ladies as much as young men? Why shouldn't we want them to both take care of ~each other~ and strive to be more ~enterprising~ in a way that makes of their lives some kind of contribution?
See my tag. It is not "oppressive to set upon people a prescription of how to act based on their sex;" it is entirely illogical not to do so. Did you not read the statistics cited? The tip of a veritable ice floe of evidence that society worked far better before this simple fact was washed away in a sea of feminist propaganda and other political correctness. Even such a PC source as Dr. Gray, in his Mars/Venus schtick, recognized the enormous differences between the sexes -- if anything he understated them -- but tragically his prescription was feminizing men. Be very afraid should our defense ever again require masses of manly men...
I don't think anyone is saying that all moral development and exhortation is purely gender-based. Yes, of course there are many commonalities that *all* humans must learn to be truly moral beings. Yet males and females are very different and so is our development into Men and Women.
Think about it this way: when a boy turns 13 (or so) he is flooded with large amounts of testosterone. This does not happen to females. Testosterone is, of course, linked to, among other things, increased libidinal drive (to say the least) and aggression. For a boy to become a Man, rather than simply a dangerous boy, he needs to learn how to deal with this change in positive ways i.e. to not use his strength for destruction and not to think his desire is license to ever use Women as sexual objects etc. Generally, this is something only an elder Man can teach him. Therefore any substantial absence of Men to teach these skills to boys is a cultural tragedy of great significance and consequence. I don't think a society can continue for very long without such instruction.
Similarly, around the same age girls experience a change in their bodies that see them physically mature (often very quickly) to that of a Woman. This *physical* maturity is rarely, if ever, coupled with a similar rapid emotional and interpersonal maturity. The young girl is faced with the great power of her physical attractiveness--which she can learn to abuse or to use well and to her ultimate benefit. Ideally, elder Women should teach a young girl how to respect herself and others so as not to use this power as a means to manipulation of others. The failure of elder Women to teach this is also a cultural tragedy of major significance. In fact, what we often find is a form of manipulation disguised as female "empowerment".
These are concerns that arise naturally in very different ways given the dissimilar types of a development in males and females. Yes, there are exceptions. More often than not though, these general patterns obtain. The only thing that is ultimately "oppressive" would be to negate these differences due to ideological blindness and utopian fantasies. Such blindness is largely the source of much of the confusion between men and women we see most everywhere today.
You didn't understand the article, I suggest you put down the feminist dagger and start to understand your son, your brother, your dad, your boyfriend, your husband better. It is not about the Battle of the Sexes anymore, women won, congratulations. It is about us men picking up the pieces of our responsibilities to our jobs, our communities, our spouses and most importantly, our children. This article is not for feminists. We don't have blue prostate cancer campaigns, no take your sons to work, etc., enough is enough. Men and boys are in a major crisis that women like yourself, even after reading one of the best articles about men and boys that I have ever read, could not understand! This book is about the plight of men (not women), it IS about the sexes, WE ARE DIFFERENT. We are not like women and women are not like men. I suggest you read the statistics again because they are dire.
Our culture doesn't hesitate to recognize "gender specific" virtues predominantly associated with women. Parenting and learning are good examples. Divorce laws give women a heavy preference over men when it comes to custody of children. Our K-12 education system is run largely by women and the classroom environment is often heavily biased to promote female traits and behaviors. Lawrence Summers got crucified for merely asking the question of whether natural gender differences patrly explain why - in spite of women's greater overall enrollment numbers - male students still outnumber females by a significant margin in math, science, and engineering degree programs.
Ms Charen deserves credit for having an honest and open discussion about whether it's still acceptable in our society to associate virtue with predominantly male traits and behaviors. It's legitimate to ask whether our culture actively associates vice with male behavior and treats virtuous male behaviors as strictly androgynous (as you seem wont to do).
The reason for a book focused on men is summed up by the last sentence in the quote from Clarke, "All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues."
Historically this has not been typical of women (to copy vices) - though you could argue the last few generations have become less virtuous on the whole. But still, women have done a better job at encouraging "attributes of maturity and goodness" in each other and don't require a book to set them straight!
Moreover, its not "oppressive" to encourage and 'train up' one group of people because you want to, because you relate to them and you think they need it. If YOU think women need a book like this, then YOU can write it!
Because for the last 30-40 years we've been explicitly taught that men are useless unless they're feminized to the point of un-recognizability. Because we've glorified women as the exemplars of all that is good. Because we (as a society) have forgotten or deliberately obscured the clear fact that all of those virtues, while desirable in both sexes, are applied differentlhy in each. That's why.
You obviously did not read the article. The author is addressing the lack of maturity in modern males, a fact that he supports with an impressive amount of verifiable data.
He said absolutely nothing about how females should act.
Kudos, Mona...Nice piece on a expected good read from Bill Bennett [now on my Wish List] about a subject of keen personal interest to me... Men. Who we are today? Where we came from and why we do what we do, especially as it relates to women. I have been a man a long time now and probably enjoyed most of all a line in the opening pages of "The Feninine Mystique" [if memory serves]: "Men are really pretty simple creatures". I agree... so my quest entails understanding [without blame] why so may in the distaff set have such difficulty with these "simple creatures"?
Ms. Charen - thank you for writing about this. I could think of nothing better to give a son than guidance towards a path of honor and virtue. Boys need to be taught how a real man acts; otherwise they'll learn it from TV shows like "2 and a half men".
Based on the previous comment, it would appear that some women need a refresher on what a real man looks like, too.
Once again, Bill Bennett reminds us of the time honored virtues embraced by civilized men and women, and western society as a whole. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that portion of the curricula in our public schools, devoted now to multiculturalism, environmentalism, and sex education, were instead given over to the verities Mr. Bennett reminds us are central to our wellbeing?
I should like to read this and to share it with the young men I am raising.
People interested in the topic might also enjoy The Art of Manliness website, External Link
While there was much wrong in actual practice (as will always be the case where fallible humankind is concerned), the ideal virtues of a knight -- Courage, Justice, Mercy, Generosity/Charity, Faith, Nobility/Franchise, Hope, Diligence/Strength, Chastity, Honesty/Integrity/Truth, Humility/Prudence, Will/Determination/Resolve/Perseverance, Prowess, Courtesy -- remain ideals worth pursuing today and for all times.
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