Tag Archives: Masculinity

Dennis Prager investigates why men are in decline and how to fix it

Another great column by Jewish scholar Dennis Prager.

Excerpt:

What is a man (as opposed to a boy)? The traditional understanding was that a man is he who takes responsibility for others — for his family, his community and his country — and, of course, for himself. A man stood for ideals and values higher than himself. He conducted himself with dignity. And he was strong.

[…]Boys today have fewer adult men in their lives than ever before. Many boys are not raised by any father. More are not raised by a father who lives in the home full time. Nearly every teacher and principal American boys have in elementary and high school is a female. The boy’s clergy person and physician may well be women. And few male figures in contemporary film radiate manhood as defined above.

[…]America has become a rights-centered rather than a responsibility-centered society. Aside from helping to produce a pandemic of narcissism, the rights-centered mindset is the opposite of the obligation/responsibility-centered mindset that makes a boy into a man. It is not good for either sex to be rights-preoccupied; but it is particularly devastating to developing men, as men are supposed to be obligation-directed.

[…]Males no longer have distinctive roles. Men do best when they are relied upon, when needed; and they feel most needed when they do something distinct from women.

[…]Many churches and synagogues have been feminized. This has occurred in at least three important ways: Clergy are increasingly female (and touchy-feely males) — for the first time in Christian and Jewish history; God is often depicted as androgynous and no longer either demanding or judging (He just loves all the time); and religion has been changed from morally and theologically demanding to a therapeutic model.

I think one of the big problems today is that men have abandoned their responsibilities to protect and provide because they are no longer appreciated. Instead, people have shifted the traditional male responsibilities to the government. Men have been replaced with a police force, welfare checks, social workers, and single-payer health care. If there is no recognition for doing hard things, having good character, and filling an important role, then men won’t even try.

Debt and the return of real men?

Captain Capitalism posted this rant which is an excellent, although very snarky, read. He starts with the fictitious case of Cindi, a suburban princess whose every need was provided for by her hard-working Daddy. But Daddy had to take on enormous amounts of debt in order to buy Cindi everything her heart desired.

Much like debt misled suburbanite Cindi to think free Audi’s, nightly dinners at Applebee’s, free food clothing and shelter, and avoiding any real career that requires math was “standard,” the amount of debt the government and economy as a whole has taken on has brainwashed nearly 3 generations of Americans to be similarly overly optimistic as to just how easy their lives should be. Debt has allowed pretty much every American to live above their means of support. Debt has allowed pretty much every American to live a life that does not produce the wealth necessary to support it. If you can’t afford a car, take it out of your home equity line. You don’t like math or science? That’s alright, piss away some of your dad’s money majoring in political science. Don’t have a down payment for a house? Don’t worry about it, we’ll loan you 100% of the money anyway. But the problem is not just the obvious unsustainability of this behavior, but even worse is how it corrupts and destroys society’s ability to live in the real world.

And where has this avoidance of math and science, normalization of debt and instant gratification led us?

You think the divorce rate in this country isn’t due to people being spoiled rotten brats and thinking marriage is some kind of trial balloon?

You think the childish and [very bad] behavior of people having “kids” and then dumping them off at daycare to have somebody else raise them because the kid was too much of a burden for them to handle, but they still wanted them anyway would have flown during the frugal 40’s?

Would teenage pregnancy even exist if the government wouldn’t perpetually bail these losers out because the government can perpetually “rollover” its debts and borrow more to finance a litany of social programs?

Would you have such a volume of frivolous lawsuits and parasitic lawyers in this country driving up the cost of doing business and destroying the standards of living?

Would you have seemingly endless legions of “environmentalists”… who have no real talents or skills, but find themselves pointless, effortless, made-up crusades to give their meaningless lives meaning at the expense of our freedoms and $3 per gallon gas?

He goes on to argue that the worsening economy will be a boon to real men. The decline of government revenues will reduce the availability of social programs to “solve” social problems that result from poor decision making. (And by poor I mean lacking wisdom, lacking respect for the moral law).

When Jimmy gets Cindi pregnant at 15 and the government is out of money, there will be two real men (the father of Jimmy and the father of Cindi) with shotguns and baseball bats ensuring Jimmy gets a job, goes to school and marries Cindi, not for Cindi’s sake, but for the child’s sake.

When somebody breaks into the house and the cops are too understaffed dealing with the crime wave that happened once the state released all those prisoners to “save money,” he’ll be the one shooting the burglar to protect himself and his family.

When a woman wants to get married and have children, the real man will wait until he’s financially stable, the country has a future, and make sure he is able to provide the kid a decent upbringing ALL THE WHILE MAKING SURE HE DOESN”T GET DIVORCED.

I am worried that the rising tax rates and inflation will cause men to withdraw irreversibly from any enterprising behavior. Big government may help people to feel more secure about making poor decisions. But responsible men fear higher taxes and punitive divorce courts… they are less likely to work hard and to marry.

Real men are just not in demand so long as marxist-feminist welfare state is there to provide everything that real men used to be sought after for. And the big appeal of the state is that it doesn’t ask for anything in return from its dependents.  But why should real men work to pay for social programs to fix the problems of other people?

One of my best friends, Andrew, got married to a fabulous Christian woman who spent time as a missionary in Russia. Men are in a terrible state in Russia – there are few real men. Her experience in Eastern Europe really helped her to understand how important the right man is for the responsibilities of marriage and parenting.

She chose to marry someone who would not only care for and provide for her, but who also understood Christian beliefs and would be able to pass them on to her children in an informed and persuasive way. But today, there is no vision for men as husbands or fathers, nor any vision of marriage as a worldview-incubator for children.