young man blues, the value of masculinity and the new masculinism movement

The key to the door is within you.  Look for it within.

Two essays today.

It is time to write an essay for young men, and one for masculine men of all ages.  (Women subscribers are welcome to read these, too.  We have previously written on both feminism and the feminine mystique.)

young man blues

This is the title of a song by the British rock band, The Who.  Here are the lyrics and a link to it on YouTube.

Oh well a young man ain’t got nothin’ in the world these days
I said a young man ain’t got nothin’ in the world these days

You know in the old days
When a young man was a strong man
All the people they’d step back
When a young man walked by

But you know nowadays
It’s the old man,
He’s got all the money
And a young man ain’t got nothin’ in the world these days
I said nothing

Everybody knows that a young man ain’t got nothin’.
Everybody!
Everybody knows that a young man ain’t got nothin’
He got nothin’
Nothin’

Take it easy on the young man
They ain’t got nothin’ in the world these days
I said they ain’t got nothin’!
. . . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN4rqlcqb8o

Starting out in the adult world is very difficult, especially with a very bad economy and job market.  (We will revisit the troubled economy in an upcoming essay.)

It was that way back in the very early 1980s when I started out into the adult world after college.  Those in my age group and myself experienced much frustration and disappointment during a very bad economic recession (1981 – 1983).  My advice for those young people starting out is not to despair, but to perservere even though the times are very tough now.  Remember that your worth as a human being is not determined by your financial wealth or lack thereof.  It is not your fault the economy is stagnant and is not creating good jobs.  That is largely the fault of the old, joyless, corrupt wretches in government.

The future belongs to the young, and not just to the young women.  The future also belongs to the young men.  Hopefully, the young will make the world a better place than it is now.

the value of masculinity and the new masculinism movement

Here we wish to stress the importance and value of men, of mature and masculine men. We are not talking here about temperamental teenagers.  Masculine men are not brutes, nor louts, nor boorish, nor stupid.  (Even though one can point to bad examples, bad behavior on the part of some men, masculine characteristics and values are not at fault.) Society benefits greatly from the character strengths and contributions of mature and masculine males.

Western society seems not to respect masculine males as much as it once did.  This could be, really is likely, due in no small part to the effects of radical feminism on people’s thinking.  (My wife and I both support the tenets of equity feminism, but we are opposed to the destructive excesses of radical or gender feminism.)  The excesses of feminism have tended to make the sexes adversaries, and that is wrong.  Men and women complement each other as each have strengths the other needs!  We must not overlook the very corrosive effects on the fabric of society of what can be termed “cultural Marxism”.  See Friedrich Engels’ (of Marx and Engels) writings on the family to see how destructive these views are.  Even in many of the elementary schools of today (in the US), there is an attack on boys.  If they exhibit normal boy like behavior (like wanting to play with little plastic “army men”) they are discouraged or even forbidden from doing so.

A personal anecdote here.  While in the third grade, not yet nine years old, I was carrying some of the ammunition while going with my father and 2 older brothers hunting.  A few years later, I took the gun safety training course and was hunting before I was 13 years of age.  There are some who would have liked to deny me these boyhood experiences.  But, consider, did this make me violent and lead me to gang banger behavior?  No.  When cultural Marxism meets the real world, one sees the falseness of that ideology.

The strength of husbands and fathers is needed for strong families and raising up children with character.  Quite simply, it is not fair to them nor realistic to expect mothers to raise children by themselves without a father in the home.  We, as a society, have tried this for the past few decades and this experiment has not borne much good fruit.  You know this.  Single mothers are up against a largely unachievable task when trying to raise headstrong teenage sons.  Doubt this?  Take a look at the black community within the US.  More than 70 per cent of black teenage males do not have a father in the home.  These young males also have some of the highest rates of violent crime.  Coincidence?  Only correlation?  By the way, this propensity for getting into trouble is also largely true for the non-black teenage males without a father in the home.  We are not picking on black people here.

Enough of societal considerations.  Let’s talk directly to the men.

My message for men:  Do not be apologetic nor ashamed for being male.  Do not be apologetic for admiring, valuing, and desiring feminine women.  And, even with all the independent women around who seem to think they do not need a loving man in their life, do not feel bad about wanting to find a woman who you can love and protect and provide for.  As well, do not believe the fiction that you cannot understand or be sensitive to a woman’s needs unless you are effeminate.  (Masculine women seek out such effeminate men for husbands or as “partners” for cohabitation.  We observe this not infrequently among people we know, or know of.)  Masculine men can be gentle.  It is not shameful, nor a sign of weakness, to shed tears of sorrow and grief when you have lost a loved one to the cruel hand of death.

Perhaps, we should start a movement. We might call it “masculinism”.  (Actually, I checked and this tag is already in use.  Others have beat me to the punch.)  This movement will celebrate the values of masculinity and those adult males who live these values.

Here is one possible code for us to live by.  (Yes, this is rather idealistic.)

We, the masculine and mature men of the world, enjoy self-confidence, self-respect, and can be and are chivalrous, generous, and magnanimous.  We value self-reliance, initiative, honesty and self-sacrifice (with courage) in ourselves and in others – both men and women. Because of our self-confidence and maturity, we are team players, and do not try to impose our will on others.  (We do not bully or badger others.)  We do try, however, to counsel others to avoid pursuing courses of action that are self-destructive.  We value and respect individuality and independent thinking as we can learn from each other.  We practice self-discipline.  We naturally have emotions, but work to control them so that we do not victimize others or ourselves through anger or other destructive emotions.  We take personal responsibility for our actions.  We respect women.  We seek (and value) women who exhibit feminine traits as they complement our naturally masculine nature.  We love our children.  We value and esteem our physical strength and our virility.  We are the loving husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, boy friends, etc. that you trust and depend on in your lives.

An ideal worth striving for, guys!  And, as you make up half of adult society, your efforts will help to better society.

As our summer is slipping away here in the northern hemisphere, we share this timely picture of natural beauty.  As masculine men, we admire and respect the beauty of the female form.