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whocares1970[continued]
"In the thirties, tires were made of rubber, and men were made of steel. Now tires are made of steel, and men are made of - ???"
[to be continued]
"In the thirties, tires were made of rubber, and men were made of steel. Now tires are made of steel, and men are made of - ???"
(A sign on the wall of a certain garage office)
In the previous part of this treatise, I stated that our society is experiencing a great decrease in masculinity of its population. The primary social roles of men were stated as protection/defense and providing. A human being is a complex creature, and the need to perform these primary tasks leads to development of certain features that can sometimes be considered secondary, and yet it is them that make the survival of the society possible. Moreover, they are inevitably assuming a certain life of their own, so to speak, they become very significant parts of individual men's makeup and the makeup of the society as a whole. The current decline of masculinity leads to the decline in exhibiting of these features, both by the male (primarily) part of the population and by the society altogether. Please keep in mind that these processes are not a new trend that started a few years back. They have been running for much longer, and some of the reasons for them are quite objective. I intend to discuss the history of what is going on and the desired solutions in one of the future parts of this work. Meanwhile, let us consider some of the most important of these masculine character traits and look at what's happening with them in the modern political and social life.
(1) Assertiveness. It is a masculine trait to know what one wants. It is a masculine trait to not be swayed by opinions of those who may dislike our goals and desires. It is also a sign of masculinity to have no need to apologize for what/who one is. (5) The last one I would like to mention here is the ability to take risks and to push oneself (and the environment) out of the comfort zone. Falling back because "This is not how we do it here", or because you may actually loose, or because you have to do something you are not accustomed to doing is not a manly way to act.
Assertiveness does not equal aggression. After all, somebody who wants money does not necessarily attempt to achieve his goal by robing a bank. Moreover, a person who knows what he wants and is confident about himself has no need to either hysterically proclaim his ambitions to the world or suppress others who do not share them. At the same time, an assertive man does not allow to violate his boundaries by dictating what he should want or how he should feel about himself.
Assertiveness has clearly been on a decline. On the individual level, this manifests in many ways. People just follow the routine or are afraid to deviate from the prescribed path fearing peer pressure, etc. People have the desire to apologize for their opinions or wishes. People are exceedingly accommodating, etc. Assertively made statements are often decried as being "aggressive." Collectiveness and following consensus are praised as value of their own, to the point of disregarding the actual end goal. This decline has been happening not only individually, but in our society as a whole. Perhaps the most telling evidence of that is the advancing of the concept of multiculturalism understood as the need to be sorry for the "majority culture", to suppress it, and to invite any alien culture to have a position that is not only equal but actually dominant. Obama's "apology tour" was a great illustration to this process. Putting interests of one's country above those of other nations is now considered a deplorable and dangerous case of nationalism.
(2) A man without a plan is not a man. Indeed. It is not enough to have some values and desires. It is a masculine characteristic to build and pursue an actual plan that should lead to achieving the goals. The decline of this trait can be easily seen via the growing difficulty of getting _concrete_ information out of people. People show the feminine trait of the need to feel connected, not to have concrete data to assess a situation or a plan to achieve their goals. Since I am putting significant emphasis on the societal/political manifestation of the problem, I can cite things like the Obama's "deal" with Iran. Many proponents of this disaster (including the very Congressman representing our district) can offer no better reason for the "deal" than the proposition that "something has to be done." Generally speaking, the decline of the ability to use concrete data and to create a concrete plan can be easily spotted when you hear the mantra that "this is a very complicated issue" (and thus no concrete ideas can/should be advanced) or, once again, that "something has to be done" - as a defense of actions that cannot be reasonably expected to yield any desired result.
(3) Toughness (related to assertiveness). It is not enough to know what you want and to have a plan. You also have to be determined enough to walk the walk, inspite of all the external and internal pressure that you may encounter. This toughness does not equal stupidity. It can happen that a certain route that you chose has a prohibitively large obstacle on it. Then you have to adjust the plan, but not to abandon it altogether.
The manifestation of this problem in political and social situations is quite widespread. It ranges from religious leaders' giving up even the major principles to acquiescence in face of the country's decline as the world leader and giving up fundamental national principles because "this is not how civilized people behave and believe." All of our "conservatives'" surrenders and retreats fit into this general category.
(4) Having a reasonably good bullshit-meter. A.k.a. not being too trusting. This, of course, is related to the above characteristics, but it also has a distinct merit of its own. Trusting printed/posted word without doubts and cross-checking, trusting Mrs. Pelosi when she says that in order to know what is in the Obamacare bill we need to pass it first. Trusting one's superior's vision without doubts (I am not talking about the military, and I am not talking about open disobedience in all relevant civilian cases, though it can be in order in certain situations). Always taking people's words at their face value. And so on, and so forth. While there are cases in which one cannot openly oppose a certain action at the given moment, it does not mean that one should not be on lookout for the consequences or hidden undercurrents.
In brief, a man has to be street-smart.
All these traits are related to each other. And, as I have mentioned earlier, they are all related to the overarching task of protecting and providing. Those who loose these characteristics will invariably be overcome by a more masculine society or civilization.
Possessing or not possessing of these traits can be seen in the way a society or nation sets its goals and works on achieving them. Our society seems to have generally stopped taking any _actions_, doing things that change the world in significant constructive ways. It has been following the flow, so to speak. I am not aware of any ambitious ideas to change the geopolitical order. It would be risky, it would make people uncomfortable, it would require outlining _real_ steps. And, most importantly, it would require to actually _know_ what do we want to change and in what direction, and it appears that people do not have such a knowledge anymore, not as a nation anyway. Even in the field of energy production and consumption - the efforts are largely related to contracting the latter. I have not heard of any ambitious projects aimed at dramatically increasing energy production, thus enabling the next technological revolution. I have not seen the left planning any _increase_ of production by using "greener" technology. And the right are still operating within the same old fossil fuels paradigm.
On the domestic policies front, the rule of the day (years, decades) seems to be having a complete and total safety net that would _guarantee_ everybody from suffering consequences of a failure. Sure enough, it is not possible in practice, and so it is just rewarding the bad behavior, punishing the good one, and, in the end, making life at least stagnant for everybody and making the environment that is opposing any initiative.
In the next part, I plan to put these phenomena into historical perspective - up to this day.
[to be continued]
