House of Eratosthenes

Blogger friend Buck was kind enough to send us a link to this in an off-line yesterday, and today he’s got a post up about it: The Art of Manliness. His chosen feature? The Virtuous Life: Frugality.

Mine?

It’s Time for a Menaissance.

A survey featured this week in the Telegraph UK sheds some light on how men feel about their role today:

* 52% said they had to live according to women’s rules
* 58% said they would prefer to be the main breadwinner, with 34% preferring their wife to be a full-time mother/homemaker, and 24% preferring their wife to work part-time.
* only 33% felt they could speak freely what they thought
* 67% felt it safer to conceal their opinion
* more than half thought society was turning them into “waxed and coifed metrosexuals”

The Call for a Menaissance

One of the reasons I started The Art of Manliness was because I noticed this sense of disorientation in myself and in my peers. It seems as though as women became more successful men were content to fade in the background and become slackers. The only idea of manliness I saw in popular culture was the crude caricature of it found in Maxim Magazine or on Spike TV.

In response to this vacuum of true manliness, the Telegraph article reports that some American scholars are calling for a “menaissance”- a return to embracing instead of shunning real manliness.

The fact that men and women are equal doesn’t have to mean they are exactly the same. True manliness sees women as equals in every way, but at the same time recognizes and appreciates our differences. Traditional manliness was characterized by ideas of honor, strength, virtue, sacrifice, responsibility, leadership, and integrity. Women rightly argue that their sex embraces these same values. But is it possible that these values and characteristics might manifest themselves differently in each sex?

Manliness: As with all things in life, take what you like and leave the rest.

Trouble is — as is also with all other things in life — when we as individuals, or large groups, make wretched decisions that lead to disaster…when we REALLY botch it…the one common thread in it all seems to be that we confuse what’s moderate with what’s extreme. Thus it is with our treatment of manliness in the last forty years or so. We’re extreme, and we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking we’re moderate. We don’t take what we like and leave the rest. We leave it all behind. And then we insist our brothers and sons do the same.

Two thirds of us think it safer to conceal our opinion, as men. I’ve been known to take the danger-road now and then, but there’s some stuff that doesn’t make it on to these pages…and, dear reader, if it doesn’t make it, you’ve no idea what it is. Every loudmouth has his limit. If the question is whether it’s “safer” I’m thoroughly in the 67% and I’m entertaining some incredulous thoughts about the sanity, or lack thereof, of the other 33%. Where the hell are they living? On an asteroid somewhere?

A few things I’d like the “Menassaince” to solve:

One. Women should be allowed to keep watching TV. For that to happen, we should eradicate television of all the symptoms of enormous damage the medium has sustained, from too many women watching it. Morning koffee-klatch news programs about nothing. Evening “family” sitcoms in which the patriarch of the household is a klutz and/or an idiot. Made-for-TV movies about strong-willed women (SWW) savoring their triumph against evil middle-aged fat white men out to steal their houses/cars/children/parents. Male characters that don’t do anything except look tall, dark, handsome and supportive while the leading lady beats up the bad guys, finds the clues, solves the murder, rights wrongs, and does all the other stuff men used to do. Which means all, or most, characters played by Luke Wilson.

Two. Boys in school have to go back to acting weird. Right now, if you’re a boy and you act weird, you get pulled out of school, put in a special “program,” and you probably get medicated. All manly men know that a manly man comes from a weird little boy. Remember what I said about confusing extremism with moderation. We’re eradicating weirdness in our youth. Eradicating things is not moderate.

Three. Sexy and gorgeous as she is, let’s stop talking about Danica Patrick until she wins some races that a man didn’t win. She does something wonderful, but it’s something nobody would be discussing if a man did it, we don’t discuss it just because she’s a girl. When the “first woman” walks on the moon, we talk about it the same way we’d be talking about the latest dude to walk on the moon. The era of celebrating women for doing things “first,” when zillions of guys already did it, is over.

Four. Let’s stop changing the subject in quaking fear anytime we hear the words “her” and “choice” in the same sentence together. And no, this isn’t an abortion rant. This is much bigger than abortion. We have a tendency to drop things like a hot potato anytime we hear a woman “chose” something. Men choose things all the time that they don’t get. This discrepancy is a big part of why so many weird little boys are enrolled in weirdness-eradicating programs (See #2) — their mothers chose to put them there. I just think if women want equality, they should have this piece of it along with all the others.

Five. Guys can be assholes. You can single out a guy and call him an asshole. Nobody takes this to mean you’ve got an opinion about ALL other men. I think the ladies should have equality here too. Someone says “stupid woman,” and culturally we’re conditioned to hear “stupid WOMEN” — every female thing that every walked the earth, in this caveman’s point of view, is stupid. When he didn’t say such a thing. Why do we persist in this practice? No one can logically defend it. But anytime we’re called-upon to act on it, we act on it. Just try a simple experiment once or twice, you’ll see I’m right. Stop the insanity.

I’m sure if some of those were put into practice, there are a few decisions currently being made the woman-way, that would not be. That’s one of the reasons none of the five have been put into practice. Telling a girl “no”…from the moments in which we play together in the sandbox on on the playground…is something we’re instinctively wired to avoid. It is our last taboo.

Well taboos can be healthy. But once again. Extremism and moderation. We’ve taken this one to extremes…

Households in which the woman decides everything, tend to be the most dysfunctional. That isn’t because I think women are dysfunctional. It’s the “everything” that makes it dysfunctional. Because that means, if there’s a father in that home, he’s been made into a shrinking violet, someone who just stands there like Luke Wilson being supportive while his own household is run without him…and that’s supposed to be wrong…that was kind of the point of feminism in the first place, wasn’t it?

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. If this is what Morgan leaves in, what’s this stuff he’s afraid to write up and leaving out?

Well, there’s an important reason why I go out on a limb like this. It has to do with the sons growing up in those households run like Amazon dictatorships. What the hell…do you tell them…about what they grow up…to be. It’s mighty odd that so few people think about this. Because that, too, was the genesis of the feminist movement. Lackluster role models for our daughters, and so forth.

I think it’s a pretty moderate thing to suggest maybe, just maybe, we might have over-corrected.

Bring on the Menaissance.

Six Men have to become wise enough to recognize that the word “Menaissance” is gay.
- vanderleun | 04/04/2008 @ 12:56
Great post! And thanks for a new blog – The Art of Manliness – that I’m sure I’ll be visiting often. Though it seems I’m already ahead of the curve (that’s rare) regarding many of the things mentioned, it’s enjoyable reading none the less.

I do have one slight disagreement with your list however, #3. Though I understood your point, come on, the reason we talk about Danica is BECAUSE she is hot, which is a very manly thing to talk about. Let’s face it if she was fugly we wouldn’t care.

http://www.indymotorspeedway.com/danica.htm

A short list to help the metrosexuals who stumble upon this blog (by mistake no doubt):

1.)Stop going to a salon and start going to a barber. Preferable some old Italian guy with an accent. Additionally, get it cut very short. If you need a comb and something other (mouse, gel) than your fingers to “style” it, it’s too long.

2.)Put down the cologne. Smelling good is for the ladies. (OK, once in awhile, just a touch and only when wearing a suite. Which the ladies love by the way).

3.)Start fishing, hunting, shooting, hiking, camping something, anything that will make you feel primitive. It’ll do wonders for your soul. Your manly soul.

4.)Do not use words like –cute or pretty- leave that to the ladies.

5.)And speaking of the ladies, hold the door open for them even, no especially if their strangers. Just try it, you’ll feel manly I guaranty.

6.)Use cash as often as possible. Nothing says manly like cash and conversely nothing says effeminate like a check or even a credit card.

7.)Stop reading “Men’s” magazines NOW. They’ll make ya’ gay. And there’s nothing worse than a straight gay guy, nothing. Even a gay guy. (BTW, being homophobic isn’t manly either).

I could go on but I wont, you get the picture.
- tim | 04/04/2008 @ 13:42
Right up there with “Manwich.”
- vanderleun | 04/04/2008 @ 13:46
I think it’s a pretty moderate thing to suggest maybe, just maybe, we might have over-corrected.

Agreed. We HAVE over-corrected. Off the frickin’ scale, as a matter of fact.

I, too, have a lot of things I don’t go on about on the blog. (Ask my adult kids sometime if you need confirmation.) And thanks for the shout-out. I immediately thought of you as I read “The Art of Manliness” yesterday. You guys could have been separated at birth.
- Buck | 04/04/2008 @ 15:56
Great post! And thanks for a new blog – The Art of Manliness – that I’m sure I’ll be visiting often.

Thank Buck.

Though I understood your point, come on, the reason we talk about Danica is BECAUSE she is hot, which is a very manly thing to talk about. Let’s face it if she was fugly we wouldn’t care.

Yeah, there’s no question about it, the lady is very easy on the eyes. Therefore, as an example, she doesn’t illustrate my point very well.

Personally, I think the “First Woman To…” craze is most objectionable for the perhaps unexpected reason that — it’s demeaning to women. Shouldn’t women be thought of as having, at the very least, the capacity to do something that no man has ever done before (besides getting pregnant)? When you’re endlessly lauding this-woman or that-woman for doing things ninety guys have already done, you end up sending a strong signal that this is the best that women can do. I know that’s not what is intended, but it’s an inescapable conclusion. And that goes for the lovely Danica “placing fifth” in this or that thing. Four other guys did better, then, right? All four of whom probably had to push around more weight. Not saying I can personally race better than her…just sayin’.

Six Men have to become wise enough to recognize that the word “Menaissance” is gay.

You know…that thought had occurred to me. Perhaps we’ve passed the point of no return — every path that would, normally, return us to our masculine roots and underpinnings, before it reaches that ultimate destination sounds at least as homoerotic as something like this.
- mkfreeberg | 04/04/2008 @ 17:37
For More fun check out.

http://mantivities.wordpress.com/
- Tom The Impaler | 04/04/2008 @ 19:19
[…] the House of Eratosthenes, the “menaissance” has begun. Maybe, just maybe, a few straight men are beginning to figure out what a lot of gays have known for […]
- Fresh Bilge » Cold Dish | 04/05/2008 @ 10:11

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