Manly Men

The Claremont Institute has issued another essay in their "unintentionally hilarious" series. I dare you to keep a straight face. Will Wilkinson has some related remarks on conservative pseudo-profundity over at Liberty and Power.

Comments

[OL]

Women bitch about the lousy men they have to choose from, but what do they do about it? They still pick some loser/asshole/mama's boy rather than insist on something better.

As long as women will accept that kind of behavior, men have no incentive to change.

[Ace Whiplash]

Let's try and deconstruct Mr. Moore's argument a bit:

"As the Duke of Wellington said, 'The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.'"
...where their comradeship and diehard loyalty to each other was cemented in mutual buggery and spankings.

"They spoke the King's English, carried themselves with an air of dignity, treated women with respect, and studied assiduously."
...so that they could win favor with their aristocrat superiors and have bestowed on them the "right" positions and the "right" wives.

"Nonetheless, his absorption with music is essentially a private refuge from the challenges of the world."
...no,no,no, it's his absorption with role playing games...geez...have you never met a nerd before?

"Finally, today's boys mill about their adolescent and post-adolescent years lacking any formal, approved rite of passage that would turn them into men. The American frontier disappeared in 1890. The call of the sea did not survive much longer"
...because, of course, in these places boys could go to "find themselves" and risk danger--dying in great numbers to thin the herd, while the lucky few wrested land and ships from previous occupants and returned home with the relevant accoutrements to be accepted into polite society.

"Barbarians, not surprisingly, listen to barbaric music...Equally basic, but fundamentally different, are the passions enlisted by modern rock without the roll, that is, heavy metal....Avery has posters on his wall of Eminem, Kobe Bryant, and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit."
...all of whom are noted "heavy metal" artists.

"In my experience, many young women are upset, but not about an elusive Prince Charming or even the shortage of "cute guys" around. Rather, they have very specific complaints against how they have been treated in shopping malls or on college campuses by immature and uncouth males, and even more pointed complaints against their boyfriends or other male acquaintances who fail to protect them. At times, they appear desperately hopeless. They say matter-of-factly that the males around them do not know how to act like either men or gentlemen....Nighttime finds barbarians reveling in the pick-up, hook-up culture of the bar scene."
...So, women admire gentlemen, but sleep with cads...whose fault is that?

Moore oversimplifies to the almost complete nullity of his argument. And for a hard hitting "manly man" who can tell it like it is, how come he doesn't dare bring up race or even class? Doesn't he have the balls?

[ed]

Gay couples don't bother me in the least. I only hope that, if it becomes a trend, they somehow find a way to acquire children to pay taxes to fund Social Security to support me in my dotage.

[John Hood]

File much of this discussion in now-worn-and bulging file labeled:

"The Potty Mouth Fallacy: cases of libertarians shooting themselves in the foot with the rest of America by confusing advocacy of decency, aesthetic standards, manners, or traditional morality in social interaction with advocacy of coercive government."

[Russ D]

joe, are you trying to equate "spanking" with "got the crap beat of"?

I've seen parents put mental abuse on children that makes spanking look way more humane.

[Ken Silber]

I can barely believe Moore's commentary about baseball caps made it into print. Is this a barbarian? Is this?

[rst]

Missing in my rant was the notion that the nanny state (the "progressive") can make fuckup parents out of those with the best of intentions but a modicum of fear towards losing their children entirely. There's a comfortable medium which is lost in deeming spanking entirely abusive. Beating a child was already illegal. Lowering the bar wasn't necessary. It's another one of those instances of going after Not The Problem.

I suppose it can say that something is "normal"

It is an analog world.

[Geotech]

Since when did going to sea make you more of a gentleman? My grandfather and father were merchant seamen in the 40's and 60's-70's, respectively, and would make the punkass fratboys Moore whines about crap their pants in fear.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Man, my deepest sympathy to the poor kids who have to go to this guy's school.

[Ron Hardin]

The Duke of Wellington also said never to neglect an opportunity to pump ship. There's advice to live by.

[I know you can do better]

Hey Julian Sanchez,

Would you care to include some substantive criticism with your snarky dismissal? Or is the act of engagement with a topic beneath your dignity?

[I know you can do better]

Hey Julian Sanchez,

Would you care to include some substantive criticism with your snarky dismissal? Or is the act of engagement with the topic beneath your dignity?

[Julian Sanchez]

The latter.

[ed]

I must have been asleep. What, exactly, is a "metrosexual?

[dhex]

john hood: moore's essay - or laff riot - was the spiritual cousin of the ecological "everything would be better if half the world starve to death and the other half lived in agrarian communes." not only is the actual sentiment barbaric in in both cases but also *thankfully* impossible to implement. all those classy manners and high-falutin' tastes - mistaking taste in music or clothing as some manifestation of objective reality is crazy - came at a severe cost to women, non-whites and anyone without the dough to play ball, as it were.

especially if you give two shits about individual sovereignty, which was supposed to be a libertarian ideal. if his essay were about politeness then we'd probably have a lot to talk about - but it's about politeness tied into a specific and very dead culture which no longer exists and may never have in the first place.

sexual repression as a welcomed brake on social mutation because some people can't keep up?

puh-lease.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

File much of this discussion in now-worn-and bulging file labeled:

"The Potty Mouth Fallacy: cases of libertarians shooting themselves in the foot with the rest of America by confusing advocacy of decency, aesthetic standards, manners, or traditional morality in social interaction with advocacy of coercive government."

I'll take that challenge. I did three years of Latin and even, before I wised up, a semester of Greek. I've read substantial portions of the Roman classical literature in the original and most of the Greek and Roman lit in English translation. By the standards of modern America I've got a moderate classical education (though I'm sure Dr. Moore, after pressing his sausagy finger into my pigeon chest and demanding to know if I understand what it is to be a man, would dismiss that). And I can say without hesitation that insistence on the dead languages is an absolute waste of time, and not just in the modern world: Latin's monopoly on educated discourse was a thousand-year albatross on western letters, and retarded the culture of Europe in the same way fundamentalism retards the Middle East today. I thank Dante, Galileo, and the other great men who helped free the west from the prison of dead languages, and I believe the views promoted by Dr. Moore and his Ridgeview school are justly marginalized in the great country we call America. Whether you needed help with a flat tire, plain dealing in a business transaction, a decent conversation, or just humane treatment after falling off your bike, you'd be better off with almost any baseball-cap-wearing dumbass of today than with the most silk-pantied gentleman of Wellington's era.

So no, I'm not making fun of an advocate of decency. I'm making fun of a judgmental, ignorant, deluded fanatic. Semper ubi sub ubi.

[rst]

Always wear underwear?

[deutschrocker]

immer wo
unter wo

[R. C. Dean]

I skimmed the article. I don't recall seeing any advocacy of government involvement in child raising at all. From that, I would conclude that the article shouldn't really raise any libertarian hackles.

If anything, the article is critical of a number of effects or side effects of increasing government involvement in child raising. If anything, that should draw cheers from the libertarian bleachers.

The man is talking, as near as I can tell, about how civil society should address the eternal problem of raising young males. On that basis, reasonable minds can differ. I tend to sympathize with his broad point that our society has tended to root out the institutions that help civilize young males. However, I found the essay rather strong on overgeneralizations, and a little weak on history (hopscotching from Aristotle to Wellington to the present leaves me wondering if maybe every generation bitches about how barbaric/useless its adolescents are).

[Shannon Love]

You missed a factual error in Moore's use of Murphy Brown as a symbol of the missing father. Avery would have had a constant masculine role-model in the person of Eldon, Murphy's live-in house painter cum Artist-in-residence.

Murphy: "I wonder if I will be a good mother."

Eldon: "No, you won't, but I will."

Eldon takes over the raising of Avery while Murphy takes on the evil Dan Quyle and otherwise journeys forth to make a good living saving the world.

Avery's tragedy is not he would lack a masculine role model but that he would never have one bound to him by law or custom. Unless Eldon chose to forgo his own career and family, Avery could never be sure he would not leave or even that Murphy would never fire him. By the time he reached the age of 11 he would understand that his emotional life always hovered over the edge of dissolution. Eldon, the one constant in his life, could disappear at anytime.

I don't recall what happened at the end of series but I hope that Eldon was one of those select men who forgoes his own dreams in service of children not his own.

Fairytale endings can happen to fictional characters. Were real children so lucky.

[Erik]

I'm surprised no one else has compared this screed to "Reefer Madness" and other scare films/tracts of the 1930's. This guy is an anacronism wrapped in denial wrapped in bacon. Mmmm, bacon...

[Jim Walsh]

Lest there remain any doubt that Moore's screed is a complete crock of shit, consider this: Rush Limbrain quoted Moore's article approvingly.

[Ace Whiplash]

Whoa, take it down a notch, Cavanaugh. Methinks your take on Western Civ is just as sweeping as Moore's, and just as flawed.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

But only one of us is advocating a national day of mourning for our amputated manhood.

[Ace Whiplash]

What should we call this day of mourning, I wonder? How about:

National Take Your Balls Out Of Your Single Mother's Purse Day, In A Respectful Fashion, or Put Them Back In, Depending On Whether You Are Terrence O. Moore's Definition of a Wimp or a Barbarian.

Not wordy enough, I reckon.

[yelowd]

For a moment I agreed with the guy only on the fact that men today are fairly "unmanly". His definition, OTOH, is way off and he makes an ass of himself. On a side note, no matter what the time period, infantry troops are not known for their civilized behavior. This is the same nonsense that develops the notion that we should have mandatory national service so that Men become disciplined, responsible, moral, etc.. Or that "fishing and Hunting" make a man yet all the barbarian does is make war and hunt. Idiot.

As for men. The women's lib movement has definitely done a job on men. Sorry, to come across as old fashioned, but men need to step up to the plate. There are certain things that they do well and certain things they don't. Biologically men and women are different. Gender matters. Studies out of the UK (I'll try and find the links) have shown that men are more likely to have heart attacks and be "unhappy" in life if they are the stay at home parent. Conversely, women suffer the same physical and emotional problems if they are in the work place. Yes, I know this isn't true for everyone, but I'll say that it is true for the majority. I don't have a statistic.

Solution:
a) Don't turn to the gov't for a solution
b) Men need to take charge and be responsible. How often do I see them making their wife plan everything, balance the checkbook, discipline the children, etc. This is irresponsible behavior and there is no excuse for it. It's no wonder men are mocked:
popular culture: Take a look at every sitcom out there and name one that celebrates the strong male as the leader of the family (without making him look like a tyrant). Everyone loves raymond: bumbling idiot. Simpson's: drunk, idiot Malcolm and the middle: simpleton Etc. This does have an effect on how we perceive behavior.

Simply put, both men and women need to be more responsible for their behavior. If you're going to have sex or get married. Take it serious. You might have a kid. And if you have a kid, face the fact you have a responsibility to that child. ON that note, the man is the natural head of the family. But to be so requires assertiveness and responsibility, not just saying it is so. Love your wife/mate, protect and provide for her. She's not there to serve you. Nor are you there to serve her.

Anyway, I could go on and on. But I'll stand back and let the arrows fly.

MAN - MEN AGAINST NONSENSE.

[Charles]

What an ASSHOLE. He makes references like a Straussian with a Britannica.

Former Marine. Former Professor. Current Principal. Good Lord.

[John Hood]

Tim:

I don't think much of the discussion thus far has involved the author's advocacy of Latin and Greek, so your comment would appear to be beside the relevant point. I happen to continue to believe in the value of learning classical languages, at least at the college level, but I don't think it has much to do at all with disciplining young men and the like.

What I was referring to was the notion that libertarians ought to recoil in disgust, all the time mouthing swear words in a pathetically adolescent attempt to prove their manliness, I guess, whenever a social critic argues that changes in certain customs, traditions, manners, and morals might have deleterious effects. I particularly don't understand why this is considered "libertarian" in any precise sense, since there are credible arguments to be made about the negative impact of government intrusions on the two-parent family, the socializing of young males, out-of-wedlock births, and the disruption of traditional multi-generational familiar relationships (Social Security and Medicare being responsible for much of that).

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on various (sub-guttural and illiterate) musical forms, but I don't find it at all absurd to suggest that they and other cultural manifestations could be doing harm to the maturation process of boys and young men. Does that mean I want the government to step in? No. Does that mean I don't believe in individualism? No. It just means that I believe advocating freedom is consistent with advocating that children pull their pants up, take their hats off, and stop grunting profanities and crude sexual jokes.

Indeed, I think that freedom is and will be imperiled in societies where these behaviors are considered "normal." More generally, and to my original point, I believe that millions of Americans otherwise predisposed to freedom and libertarian political prescriptions will continue to be turned off by this kind of rhetoric.

[dhex]

what you're describing is conditioning to gender roles, i think. which would explain all the discomfort and whatnot, if it exists outside of the usual spectrum of human misery and disatisfaction.

i think we're much more malleable than most of us would like to believe, i think. and this includes such "natural drives" ascribed to everything from gender to race and even skull size in the past.

though you're dead on about sitcoms. though homer simpson is more of a mildly retarded trickster god than a sitcom character.

[joe]

Some of the Beastie Boys' lyrics are in iambic pentameter. Care to point out any literate, supra-gutteral music from your youth that can claim that, gramps?

[tchiers]

...women want to be treated like ladies. Hold the damn door open, tell her she looks nice, and pay for the date. Hey, and every once in a while, come to her rescue when she looks like she needs it, stick up for her in front of your friends, and buy her flowers.

Well, OK. But if I buy your dinner, I expect more than a peck on the cheek at the end of the night.

[Tom from Texas]

The baseball cap comments in Moore's rambling have been sticking with me all day. Then I realized why.

While living in San Antonio with all its retired veterans, I would regularly see guys in the neighborhood, at the malls or down on the Riverwalk sporting ballcaps that read "Veteran WWII", "Veteran Korean War" or "Vietnam Veteran." They wore those caps proudly as a badge of their service to this country.

So fuck you for being unpatriotic, Terrence Moore. If ballcaps indoors in a mall or restaurant are fine for the Greatest Generation and the Vietnam vets, then they're just fine for everybody else.

[yelowd]

dhex:
Though there is some conditioning involved as a social animal, there are some things that do not changed. The way the brain operates, emotions, etc. I suppose you could say that the physical/chemical establishes a range of behaviors, societal conditioning then works within that range.

Another point that I forgot:
Rather than the bride-to-be's family paying for everything, I think that the groom-to-be's family needs to start paying for everything. Why? because for 9-12 months, the man is completely at the will of the woman and her family's money. This puts him in an awkward state. She learns to plan, budget, and essentially becomes the first leader of the family before they are married. Then all of a sudden within 24 hrs, the man is supposed to be the leader of the family, planning, budgeting, etc. Unfortunately, both man and woman have established a pattern for almost a year. That is very difficult to break.

This is a very libertarian solution in my mind, since it is a matter of choice with no gov't manipulation of the tax structure, public schools, divorce laws, etc.

Let the arrows fly.

[Andy D.]

"i think we're much more malleable than most of us would like to believe, i think."

Brave of you to take such an unqualified stand on your principles! I think I might disagree with you, but it depends....

Clearly our genes play a huge role in our lives (social and otherwise), and clearly sex-based genetic differences cause more than just physical differences between the sexes. And there are those mind-bogglingly complex secondary genetic effects that mean that even physical differences are far more than skin deep (e.g. if you're unusually beautiful, people will treat you differently, which will affect your phychological development).

[Jon H]

Shannon Love writes: "Eldon, the one constant in his life, could disappear at anytime."

And this is unique to Avery's situation how, exactly?

Every child exists in a world in which one or both parents could disappear at any time.

[Tom from Texas]

yelowd,

Do you have a Death Wish?

My wife makes in excess of $400,000 a year. I make just under $20,000. "Honey, the checkbook is mine from now on. When we got married, I made 5 grand more a year than you and I controlled our finances, as was only right, since I have a penis. Then, when your income had advanced to the point where our accountant would forget to even ask me for my earnings statements every January, I let you take over. But now it's time that I took back my manly role as arbiter of our household and family banker. Honey? Honey? Stop laughing, Goddammit!"

[Dan]

I always assumed Murphy Brown had planned her single motherhood. If it was an accident, and Brown decided to raise it on here own, doesn't that mean Quayle was complaining that she didn't have an abortion?

The Brown character had slept with two men, neither of whom she was in a serious relationship with, got pregnant, and decided not to marry either of the possible fathers.

Quayle was complaining about the entire mentality behind that chain of events, and in particular with the notion that Brown's selfishness trumped the child's need for a father.

So it isn't a dichotomy between "abortion" and "single motherhood". It's "abortion", "single motherhood", or "get married, you stupid whore."

[dhex]

yellowd: i agree with you, but my fiancee and i have taken it a step further. we're paying for the wedding ourselves. the honeymoon ourselves. etc. and it's been a good exercise in performing financial maneuvers as a duo.

there are things we do better than each other, obviously, and certain things we'd both rather handle because of strengths in those areas. i.e. she burns water and i'm a pretty good cook, and so on. but i think those things have to do with our character rather than our gender, at least in most cases.

andy: i agree with you. some things cannot be changed. i don't claim to know the depths of what is and isn't able to be altered, and have only my life the and the lives of the people i know to use as a ruler.

just considering the things i've learned in the past five years, the behaviors i've gained and lost lead me to believe our capabilities are far from set in stone.

[Jack]

The thing that always nags at my mind when I read these rants by cultural conservatives is, "What the hell is this hang-up with hats about?" I don't wear hats (baseball or otherwise) myself, but it doesn't bother me if someone else does. I know it's "traditional" to take off your hat indoors, but it was also traditional for a couple centuries for upper class men to wear wigs, powder their hair, put it in ringlets, etc., etc.

[John Hood]

Joe:

The Beastie Boys are obviously musical geniuses, and I would be delighted for my sons one day to master their impressive and timeless repertoire.

[jon]

I loved the bit about sex being easy to get nowadays. That, combined with an obsession to clothing and music, makes the author look like a dolt. His advice: lock up your young girls, put the men in respectable suits, and stop listening to the "Pelvis" music.

Was this guy in the Taliban?

[rpj]

Did anyone find the C.S. Lewis reference ironic? The reference is from a series of lectures given by Lewis in 1943 titled "The Abolition of Man." In the ten years prior to these lectures, England's England's education system churned out the same men who prompted Churchill to declare "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."-- (Speech made in the House of Commons as the Battle Britain peaked on August 20, 1940.) I think that it then forces one to ask, Did the state of England's education system truly decline so radically in the ten years preceding the given lectures? I tend to think not.

As for Moore's article, in my opinion it is merely another disingenous, revisionist reflection on "the good ol' days." Would someone please tell me when this halcyon period, this meridian of time existed where I was assured that I could raise my son to be a man and my daughters to be ladies? I could then put my whole family in my time machine and take them back to this wonderful time.

There have always been rogues, barbarians, gentlemen, men of honor,integrity, compassion and courage, women of integrity, intelligence, gentleness, caring, etc., women of ill-repute and villianous. What honestly precludes the present day from having this same assortment with roughly the same distribution?

[yelowd]

rpj-
Good point. If it is true that you can judge a culture by what it produces- literature, mags, etc. then I would say that something has definitely changed. I bring up my point about sitcoms again. There are a lot of other indicators as well: jokes, books, etc. that mostly celebrate woman, while making men the butt of the joke (and no not all books are like this). But even those books that are aimed at men often talk about how men need to become more sensitive and see the world differently etc. Sorry, the male and female brains are hardwired differently. Science supports this claim (I will link tomorrow if anyone requests).

At the same time all of those people exist at once in one society. Dickens' character "joe" in Great Expectations is a perfect example of this fact- how he is portrayed is also a subtlity that reflects the outlook of the times. I suppose it is just a matter of how many are in each camp.

dhex-
Thanks for the support. It's just something that I've noticed as the first to get married and then seeing a lot of my friends go through it. your's was a good choice. Hell, it may even help to reign in some of the ridiculous costs. Sometimes (ok, most of the time) I wish I had that chunk of money to buy a biz or invest with.

As for MAN-Men Against Nonsense. Some of us here in MN are trying to start the movement. Just by talking to people about what men should be like chivalrous, leaders of the family, etc. People seem to be happier, too. My wife worked until she became a stay at home mom. Most of our friends are either DINKs or like us. It just kills me when the guy tells me he isn't eating meat anymore because his wife won't let him... ok. Or I don't know if I'm allowed to go out. Or let me check to see if we should spend the money. Come on. Be responsible and be assertive. Don't be a jerk, but simply lay down the rules as to what the roles are to be and then live accordingly. The guy will fulfill his natural role as will the wife. Even if she makes more (though 400k/20k is a huge ratio), mine did for awhile, it can still work.

The ass at Claremont, tough, makes it seem like this notion is just some right wing, social conservative idea. If he really cared about the young men out there and our society, he wouldn't cut them down by classifying everyone as either a barbarian or a wimp. He'd simply point out how to become a strong, chivalrous man. Foolish marine thinks that the boot camp attitude works everywhere.

[Chris Puzak]

Didn't The American Conservative run an article just like this a few months ago, except with more complaining about metrosexuals and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?

[dhex]

you can ALWAYS spot a barbarian by his baseball cap.

[joe]

Not being much of a fan, I always assumed Murphy Brown had planned her single motherhood. If it was an accident, and Brown decided to raise it on here own, doesn't that mean Quayle was complaining that she didn't have an abortion?

Anyway, this guy's a twit. Teach boys (and girls) to be decent PEOPLE, and the gender thing will take care of itself. That is, unless you believe masculinity is such a fragile social construction, unmoored to biology, that its survival requires intensive intervention on the part of parents. My 15 month old is a total girly girl, and I don't need to spend a great deal of time encouraging it.

[Collin]

No surprise that boys at Reason want to laugh this one off. After all, they're kinda known as the flagship publication for hipster libertarian wimps.

[Vic the Appraiser]

It is said that a central conservative insight is that human nature is more or less fixed. To the extent that conservatism's opposite - radicalism - has invariably involved attempts to change or ignore human nature (with terrible results), I buy this argument.

Why is it, then, that so-called conservatives write nonsense like that Claremont essay? As the Joe says, what are they afraid of?

Why do conservatives oppose gay marriage? They act as if it's some kind of scary slippery slope - our children will be taught that it's ok to be gay, so they'll turn gay themselves. In addition to defying common sense and two thousand years of recorded history, it defies that central conservative tenet.

The next time a conservative tells you that he's afraid of gay "recruitment", ask him when he decided to be straight.

[dhex]

collin: but did you read what he wrote? heavy metal sexual vulgarity? barbarians in baseball hats? you can't rewind the cultural clock 85 years anymore than you can send us all back to the pastoral fantasy land of the pre-state agrarian scene.

it's almost like advocating that people never change their clothes because it's too hard to remember who each person is unless they stay fixed in one outfit forever. cultural values change, definitions change and that's just going to keep accelerating. personally, i have little use for gender as a hard and fast rule, but don't see that as the prelude to being a wuss. i see it as the prelude to being flexible and adaptable to a world that's going to change whether anyone likes it or not.

and i'll kick the ass of anyone who says otherwise!!! 🙂

the essay is very entertaining to someone under the age of 70 but he's obviously at least somewhat serious.

fuckin' A, dude!

[rst]

No surprise that boys at Reason want to laugh this one off. After all, they're kinda known as the flagship publication for hipster libertarian wimps.

We laugh this off because it's stupid. Can you spot a barbarian? How thankful should I be that we have an ex-Marine educator to clue us in on the new caste system? Nigga please. Not all of us perk up our ears every time girls bitch through some advocate about how horrible the guys around them are. Hold your own goddamned door or learn to love that glass ceiling.

[rst]

They act as if it's some kind of scary slippery slope

It is a slippery slope, towards the pervasion of acceptance of the gay lifestyle. If you care about that sort of thing, it might be bad. Most of them are just men who act like women, anyway.

[Rebekah]

RST is the exact type of man that essay was addressing. He isn't a man. He certainly isn't a gentleman. And to all you "Men" out there, women want to be treated like ladies. Hold the damn door open, tell her she looks nice, and pay for the date. Hey, and every once in a while, come to her rescue when she looks like she needs it, stick up for her in front of your friends, and buy her flowers.

The point of women's lib wasn't to encourage men to stop acting like gentlemen, it was to let you know that we are just as capable in the social and political realm as you are. In those realms we are equal. And if you don't mind, when we tell you to get off your lazy ass and work, we're not being bitches, we're doing our job as your boss. If you don't want to work, go somewhere else.

As for the gay marriage comments, just like a whimp to say that its perfectly acceptable and normal. Biology says differently.

[rst]

He certainly isn't a gentleman.

It is not necessary to be a gentleman, any more than it is necessary for women to be "ladies". Take your expectations of us, wrap them up with your applicator and flush them down the toilet.

A man is what a man does, not what he says. You have read a finite few number of words, and as such you have no ability to determine whether I am a man. Get a clue.

[joe]

Rebekah, biology says that a minority of higher primates will engage in homosexual behavior, with differences among various species.

Psychology (and thousands of years of history) say that a minority of human beings will be capable of being in love with, and forming marital bonds with, people of the same sex.

What does "normal" have to do with the law anyway?

[rst]

And why should we do all this? Because you say it's the right thing to do?

women want to be treated like ladies.

Men want to be treated like sex objects. Now you know what it feels like to want.

[Ellie]

Not all of us perk up our ears every time girls bitch through some advocate about how horrible the guys around them are. Hold your own goddamned door or learn to love that glass ceiling.

A-fucking-men.

And to all you "Men" out there, women want to be treated like ladies. Hold the damn door open, tell her she looks nice, and pay for the date. Hey, and every once in a while, come to her rescue when she looks like she needs it, stick up for her in front of your friends, and buy her flowers.

If you're with a man who loves you, and you need him to do these things for you to be happy, then he should do them. I'm with a man who loves me, but I don't need to be treated "like a lady;" I want a man who "respects people" and "is a good person." I personally couldn't care less if he holds the door for me or not. I thought women's lib was about getting to make our own decisions, and there's one I made.

As for the gay marriage comments, just like a whimp to say that its perfectly acceptable and normal. Biology says differently.

Fuck biology, I'll take people being happy together and not hurting anyone any damn day of the week.

[dhex]

the acceptance of perversion is our only hope as a culture. and a planet.

[joe]

Hold on, you don't have to approve of these boors' behavior to have a problem with the article. I think it's equally valid to say that the boys are acting too masculine - overly aggressive, seeking promiscuous sex, not using indoor voices...

Here's an idea, how about we teach our sons to act like civilized people whether there are women around or not?

[Andy D.]

"As for the gay marriage comments, just like a whimp to say that its perfectly acceptable and normal. Biology says differently."

I'm not sure what exactly biology is supposed to be saying here. I don't know how biology could say that something is "acceptable"... but I suppose it can say that something is "normal". Certainly, marriage is not natural or normal. Compared to other animals, human sexuality (straight or gay) is far outside the norm (e.g. oral sex... what the hell would nature want with that?). Homosexuality is not normal in the sense that it's not average, but it's common enough and spontaneous enough to be called natural in my book. And all those romantic-type accoutrements you mention are certainly not normal.

[Tom from Texas]

Can we all agree that maybe the manly men and the girly girls need to get together and go off somewhere, maybe with the girly men and the manly girls, and leave the rest of us alone?

[rst]

Here's an idea, how about we teach our sons to act like civilized people whether there are women around or not?

There's an idea. But you're suggesting parents take an active role in raising their children, anathema to the modern, progressive schools of thought. Hell you can't even spank your kid anymore without getting yelled at by some nanny institution. And people wonder why kids are growing up more "barbaric". It's because of fuckup parents who didn't do their jobs.

[joe]

Fuckup parents and progressive parents are two distinct groups, with no more overlap than fuckup parents and old fashioned parents.

I've seen plenty of parents who keep their kids in line without resorting to violence. Most of the worst ones, on the other hand, got the crap beat of them at home.

[mooserack]

Rebekah has a novel idea:
"women want to be treated like ladies. Hold the damn door open, tell her she looks nice, and pay for the date. Hey, and every once in a while, come to her rescue when she looks like she needs it, stick up for her in front of your friends, and buy her flowers."

Very nice. Very good advice. Unfortunately, whether that's gentlemanly or rude depends on the lady. For many at my north-eastern liberal arts college, treating a woman in that manner was considered the apex of apedom.

But the lingo of "we women are your boss" is just as over the top IMHO. The bossy male is a joke that is not approved of these days. But the bossy female or female as boss of the relationship is considered okay in many circles. How about that it all depends on the relationship?

Then "defending her honor". All for it: A friend of mine says: "I am just as capable of slaying the dragon, but you have the comparative advantage in dragon-slaying" Good libertarians would agree with that. And a united front is even stronger.

Calling the day after a date is another that can get the guy classified as "intrusive" by some; others appreciate the gesture. Eliminate the games and the politeness of the gesture can be restored.

The one that really gets my goat is the "not sticking up for her in front of [his] friends". C'mon guy, show some sack and don't allow someone to talk bad about your girlfriend.

A friendship of mine ended because he made a comment to my girlfriend and I took exception to his crude remarks. Thus ended what was at that point a lifelong friendship. There are just some subject matters that aren't cool.

Then there's the guy who talks about "porking" his wife. Why, I believe there was one of those mature "war-no war" arguments a few weeks ago where someone (SP) and another (JB) were getting it on. SP then declared he was leaving to go pork his wife. Yee Haw. Very Classy.

How about this to both sides: stop the game playing and lighten up a bit.

Mooserack

[John Q]

I think this discussion is interesting but irrelevant. This trend is changing for the newest generation.

I'm in my early 30s with three little kids. I know many couples in the same situation. Of the 10 closest to us:

- 9/10 have a stay at home mother. It's not that we're rich, everyone is a construction worker/cop/office clerk, but we all live very frugally so that the mom can stay at home.

-10/10 spank their kids. Maybe spank is the wrong word, but an occasional swat on the hand. You can't tell a 2 year old not to mess with the cat's food and expect her to understand or to stop messing with it until the cat scratches her.

-8/10 the couples paid for their own wedding, without the help of parents. Who's stupid enough to piss away $40,000 of their parents' money on a party for a bunch of strangers when that kind of no interest loan can get a new couple a nice down payment on a house?

[Larry Edelstein]

It's just so silly. So oversimplifying and lacking in perspective.

There's plenty of room to debate the causes and effects of this bit of culture and that bit, but this article takes up almost none of it. This guy's rock ribs must be cutting off his air supply.

[Adam]

Is it just me, or is this a thinly veiled racist tirade against rap music and hip hop culture?

[Andrew Lynch]

Maybe I've got better things to do with my time now that I'm comfortably numb, but I couldn't get past the first arch paragraph -- the Hollywood setup -- without dipping into a woozy state of indifference to the topic matter. When are we going to see all these fabulous H&R debate skills applied to topics that MEAN something?

[AJMB]

I want to be . . . . . . . . . . .a LION TAMER!

[John Hood]

Wow, Tim, you're really passionate about this. Nice Twilight Zone reference, BTW.

I read the Claremont piece a while back in their Review of Books and that's what I was operating on when I responded to the threat initially. Now I've gone back to look at it again online, and I'm sorry to say I just don't see the same piece you do. I'm not going to argue that little barbarians are being manufactured in American homes and schools because of a lack of sufficient instruction in Latin. I would do along with a version of the thesis, perhaps a less curmudgeonly and dated one than was offered by Claremont, that many young men today are ending up on one extreme or the other -- barbarian or wimp -- due to a combinations of parental, education, and societal pressures.

I would add that much of the problem, I believe, stems from a lack of sufficient and appropriate fathering, which is different from mothering (though not necessarily related to the sex of the parents taking on those roles). And some of that lack of fathering can be laid at the feet of big and intrusive government (insert your favorite welfare-reform wonkery here).

Nor is all this simply more evidence of such well-known facts as young people know best, old people don't get it, and cultural trends are fleeting and have no deep significance. Grow up, people -- we're not talking about the powdered-wig affectations of wealthy layabouts.

As to the issue of the American military, VDH and other conservatives have some hang-ups here, I agree, and in general the notion that the vast majority of young men are barbarians or wimps is questionable. Our volunteer army (thank goodness) appears quite capable of recruiting the appropriate pool of manliness.

And, yes, plenty of real men wear baseball caps. Most young rednecks of my acquaintence wouldn't be caught dead without their baseball caps. But many still take them off at the appropriate time, make sure their pants don't show their butt cracks, don't swear like sailors in front of their moms or girlfriends (in private all bets are off), are respectful, etc. This is not a class thing, a race thing, or a generational thing.

I also agree that there's been somewhat of a welcome backlash to permissiveness and foolishness in recent years. That's good news for America and even for the cause of political and economic freedom.

[Randall Loffelmacher]

Hilarious?
Hardly.
There are many things in this piece that should be plain-as-day to the reader. The changes that happened during the second half of the twentieth century, both technological and social, are still playing out. We have not seen the full set of consequences yet, but I think that there really is something bad going on with men and boys. I believe that easy divorce is the main culprit, but how can I say.
All I have to say is that there is nothing "unintentionally hilarious" about this piece. Julian, where are you coming from this time?

[John Hood]

I basically agree with Larry and Andrew.

Adam, there is nothing "racist? about criticizing rap and hip hop culture, not that I want to get into that. My point was that there is nothing libertarian about defending rap or hip hop culture.

[LauraN]

My God...I can hardly tell if the comments here are serious or merely morons poking at an ant nest.

If a man does not open my car door, I know precisely how he feels about proper manners and decorum. I may be old fashioned but I behave like a lady and expect to be treated like one. In return, he will be treated with the respect and care that a gentleman deserves.

Everyone is so lost in the specifics of the examples provided that they utterly miss the meaning - boys are being raised (or not)to behave like animals. This is something that will harm society for many a year to come. To be fair, girls are being raised (or not) to be whores. (Why anyone expresses surprise at the constant rape/assaults of younger and younger women is beyond me - you let them go about dressed like meat. Thus they are prey.)This, too, shall harm us in the end. Believe me - sex is great. I don't care what or whom you like to fuck as long as it's consensual.

However, the fact is that kids no longer understand the concept of responsibility, of proper behavior, nor any kind of manners. The lack of the last is what will ruin our world.

Now, if there was just an easy way to get the hell off of it...

[Tom from Texas]

Yelowd,

Your ideas sound very much like Promise Keepers.

[TJ]

Mr Loffelmacher says:

"Hilarious? Hardly."

I say:
Hilarious? Absolutely! Dude!

Just one of the many choice quotes:

"Recognizing other barbarians by their ball caps, one barbarian can enter into a verbal exchange with another anywhere: in a men's room, at an airport, in a movie theater. This exchange, which never quite reaches the level of conversation, might begin with, "Hey, what up?" A traditional response: "Dude!" "

Damn, now that's funny. But, later in the article Mr. Moore exposes his ulterior motive for writing this drivel:

"As Father Walter Ong expressed it, the male nature, in order to prove itself, in order to distinguish itself from the potentially emasculating feminine world into which the boy is born, longs for some "againstness" in the natural or moral world which the boy can overcome."

See, he just wanted to provide us something to be against! However, my Male Nature nevertheless seems diminished by the lack of worthyness this challenge provided. Well, that and the incessant giggles as I write seem rather feminine.

[yelowd]

Jack-
Sorry. I should have been more specific with my example. I wasn't referring to talking over a purchase or a trip or something like that with your significant other. My wife and I do it all the time. Mine was the point where I know guys who have to ask their wife for money to do pretty much anything. She holds the purse strings in a manner that she makes all of the decisions re: money. It's a position of power.

If you have a family, that family needs to have a leader. There can only be one.

[TJ]

I just realized who Moore reminds me of:

General Jack D. Ripper, who is obsessed with protecting the purity of precious bodily fluids.

I'm still laughing.

[yelowd]

Please don't say that.

I hate promise keepers and want nothing to do with it. That is a movement that turns men into women if I ever saw one. I was invited to one in San Diego probably 10 years ago. I had no idea what it was so I went. Jack Murphy was literally full of men. They sang some songs and talked about being responsible and all of that.. Next thing I know, they're urging everyone to do group hugs. I refused and left.

Unfortunately, Promise Keepers, Moore, and every other social conservative uses the same terms I am and have tainted the notion of being a man. But like I said above regarding books for men, they want men to become more feeling oriented, understanding, etc. Nothing is out there saying that maybe women need to realize how the man's brain is programmed, what he does best, or anything that remotely celebrates the nature of men.

For a historical reference: look at what Cato ( I believe the elder) wrote and did in Rome. He recognized the same issues of men weakening their position in society, and the crumbling of the culture of Rome as a result. This isn't ridiculous to see, it's just that those most vocal- like moore, are ridiculous and laughable which makes the issue seem ridiculous, antiquated, and laughable.

Also, I thought about your point of your wife making more money then you. To reverse the situation, how many couples do you know where the man either makes all of the money or the vast majority of it while the wife controls the checkbook?

[Tim Cavanaugh]

I don't think much of the discussion thus far has involved the author's advocacy of Latin and Greek, so your comment would appear to be beside the relevant point.

It is you, sir, who have missed the relevant point. Those "British boys who later defeated Napolean" after "learning to become gentlemen" were brought up on the principle that being exposed to all the best that's e'er been thought would make them better people. What do you think they were teaching, other than bare-bottom spankings, in those "elite public schools" the author holds up as the shining opposite of today's School's for Sissies?

More to the point, when the author isn't spewing out ridiculous screeds about momism (which are no doubt as true today as they were when Carlyle, or for that matter St. Paul, made them first), he collects a check as principal of a "Classical School" where they lay down the law against tv, pop music and video games. That is, when he lays off singing familiar songs for conservative haters of capitalism's products and puts his ideas to the iron test of the marketplace, his solution to society's ills is to have boys read more Horace (or perhaps Virgil's gay Eclogue), with bare-bottom spankings to be administered to boys who mix up their genitive with their ablative.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

In the ten years prior to these lectures, England's England's education system churned out the same men who prompted Churchill to declare "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

I'd guess that a few barbarians, hell maybe even a couple of wimps, have been among the American kids giving their lives in Iraq over the past year. This whole argument reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode where an elderly teacher gets laid off, and while sitting alone in his classroom and reflecting on whether his 30 or 40 years of educating young men were worth it, is visited by the ghosts of his former students. "I died on Mt. Suribachi!" says one. "I had my torso blown out by an 88 at the Battle of the Bulge," says another. "I lost my legs and bled to death at the Chosin Reservoir breakout," says a third. "I was disemboweled by a landmine in Indochina," says another. "You've become men," the teacher exclaims, "It was all worth it!" (Like the episode with Robert Redford as Mr. Death, this was one of TZ's "heartwarming" episodes.)

[joe]

First read, I was appalled.

Second read, LMAO. In my mind's eye, I see a pith helmet and John Cleese mustache.

[joe]

Did anyone else catch the Victor David Hanson piece in NRO a few months ago, in which he expressed shock that the heavy metal and rap listening, video game playing youth of America turn out to the greatest soldiers ever to take up arms? He's absolutely befuddled.

[Andy D.]

LauraN, that whole "Back in my day, kids had respect!" line is up there with "Things were so much better for everyone, when I was young and healthy!" as great delusions of the aging process. The older generation has always had a powerful tendency to decry the younger generation for its lack of education, lack of respect, lack of manners, laziness, etc. And under the watchful gaze of human memory, music tends to hit its peak around the time the judge was 16-25 (Everyone knows Rocknroll attained perfection in 1972.-- Homer Simpson). You get the point, yes?

As for kids today and their manners... well, customs change. Much of what older people see as proper chilvalry, younger people see as outdated customs... but it's unfair to assume that young men don't treat pretty girls especially well. I would guess that 15 or 20 years from now, chilvalry will make a comeback... and those of us who grew up post-chivalry will decry our youth for being consumed with meaningless gestures, for treating women like they're dim children or retards (e.g. What, she can't open the door for herself? Does he think she's retarded or somefin?)

[AJMB]

My wife loves and respects me. I love and respect my wife. Anything else (holding doors, picking up the cheque when we dated) is just window dressing. How hard is that to figure out?

[Jack]

Yelowd wrote: "It just kills me when the guy tells me ... let me check to see if we should spend the money."

Because it's foolish for people with joint chequing accounts/credit cards to make choices on purchases together?