I agree 100% with your advice on masculinity, but I think it also applies equally to everyone else. Your advice made me think of my grandmothers. One who during the Great Depression escaped an abusive marriage and with her brother’s assistance drove her kids from South Carolina to Idaho in a Model A and a trailer stuffed with her few pos…
I agree 100% with your advice on masculinity, but I think it also applies equally to everyone else. Your advice made me think of my grandmothers. One who during the Great Depression escaped an abusive marriage and with her brother’s assistance drove her kids from South Carolina to Idaho in a Model A and a trailer stuffed with her few possessions to start a new life. She became a custodian at a TB hospital, and a few years later she went to nursing school at age 52. She was active in her church and community, and raised most of the meat, poultry, eggs, fruit and vegetables the family consumed. My other grandmother raised a blended family of fifteen ( yours, mine, ours and theirs), grew most of their own food, co-managed the family ranch and sawmill, taught Sunday school, and played piano at church and for square dances. They lived their lives by the same principles you set forth, and also passed them on to their daughters and sons. They were both quite feminine,but also carried the responsibility for their families and communities, very friendly but not to be trifled with.
Thank you for all your great writing, Ted! I came here because of your music writing but continue to return for your commentary on culture at large.
But isn't it telling that many of the examples of how men should be are being demonstrated by women in our lives, as well as men.
Courage, truthfulness, protecting others, selflessness, tenacity, etc are universal virtues, available to all. They need to be developed by all. They might be thought old-fashioned, but actually are eternal virtues that no one has ever shown we can do without.
For males who wonder how to be, people are responding: develop these virtues! These are the key ones. They will lead to the others.
On the other hand, obsession with one's image, popularity, and notoriety are the coins of the realm for all today. The kids want to be "influencers," the new rock stars.
On the other, other, hand: young males still are larger, stronger, more aggressive, and more in need of excitement than girls are, and schools are not designed for them. They are still the Yang to the girls Yin.
Meanwhile the girls are showing more Yang than they used to, and the boys more Yin.
And with both parents working, sometimes doing multiple jobs, who is actually teaching the children to be adults, anyway? The culture as a whole does the very opposite.
We need to do better than offer "Barbie" and "James Bond" as models of how to be. Kids think those are hopelessly out of date, anyway.
We also need to do better than that row of male tech Oligarchs at the inauguration. Do you want your world to be run by them? Wait, it already is!
Here's a virtue we can all, I hope, get behind: wisdom. Consider its opposite: foolishness. We've got plenty of that. Not to mention: confusion!
I say, even though you say all the "right" things, im not buying it. Mostly bc im not going to listen to some fool when he tells me what i NEED to do. The people i respect and listen to do not talk like this. They are wise enough to know that thats a hollow form of leadership. What comes next, pass around the donation plate?
No.. ill take my cues from those that walk the walk, and nevermind those that talk the talk.
This is, of course, true, but there is a subtle and hard-to-articulate idea about how it is differently in men and women. I can recognise it but can’t explain it using clear, rational, ‘left-brain’ categories. As a result, it becomes invalidated, and we lose something important, this is one of the thingsart can do.
came here to write this - it's actually Freud's prescription for a happy life, and before him countless others - from buddha to the stoics, women were just written out of this 'masculinity' (which we might call humanity) by sexism, let us be blunt, because men were the only ones allowed to be heroes to their own story - to have protagonist syndrome, luckily society has changed and we are demanding that human right - and acknolwedging others, I disagree a tad about Taylor Sheridan's 'cure - sure it works I money terms but it's still a tad grotesque and unneccesary, it's the best end of the idiocy that sees men and women as fundamentally different in qualities. a real James Bond would do all that whilst recognising that it's simply being a decent human.
Very well said. I have no issues with Ted and other writers prescribing this advice as the epitome of good masculanity, but I just think it should apply to every decent and functional adult in society.
I agree 100% with your advice on masculinity, but I think it also applies equally to everyone else. Your advice made me think of my grandmothers. One who during the Great Depression escaped an abusive marriage and with her brother’s assistance drove her kids from South Carolina to Idaho in a Model A and a trailer stuffed with her few possessions to start a new life. She became a custodian at a TB hospital, and a few years later she went to nursing school at age 52. She was active in her church and community, and raised most of the meat, poultry, eggs, fruit and vegetables the family consumed. My other grandmother raised a blended family of fifteen ( yours, mine, ours and theirs), grew most of their own food, co-managed the family ranch and sawmill, taught Sunday school, and played piano at church and for square dances. They lived their lives by the same principles you set forth, and also passed them on to their daughters and sons. They were both quite feminine,but also carried the responsibility for their families and communities, very friendly but not to be trifled with.
Thank you for all your great writing, Ted! I came here because of your music writing but continue to return for your commentary on culture at large.
I agree. Instead of saying 'a real man' delivers on his responsibilities, you could just say 'a mature person'. It applies to everyone.
Idon't think it needs to be seen as inherently manly. But maybe that's just the framing that some men need.
This is an essay on masculinity and James Bond, a man.
Yes, of course.
But isn't it telling that many of the examples of how men should be are being demonstrated by women in our lives, as well as men.
Courage, truthfulness, protecting others, selflessness, tenacity, etc are universal virtues, available to all. They need to be developed by all. They might be thought old-fashioned, but actually are eternal virtues that no one has ever shown we can do without.
For males who wonder how to be, people are responding: develop these virtues! These are the key ones. They will lead to the others.
On the other hand, obsession with one's image, popularity, and notoriety are the coins of the realm for all today. The kids want to be "influencers," the new rock stars.
On the other, other, hand: young males still are larger, stronger, more aggressive, and more in need of excitement than girls are, and schools are not designed for them. They are still the Yang to the girls Yin.
Meanwhile the girls are showing more Yang than they used to, and the boys more Yin.
And with both parents working, sometimes doing multiple jobs, who is actually teaching the children to be adults, anyway? The culture as a whole does the very opposite.
We need to do better than offer "Barbie" and "James Bond" as models of how to be. Kids think those are hopelessly out of date, anyway.
We also need to do better than that row of male tech Oligarchs at the inauguration. Do you want your world to be run by them? Wait, it already is!
Here's a virtue we can all, I hope, get behind: wisdom. Consider its opposite: foolishness. We've got plenty of that. Not to mention: confusion!
What say you?
I say, even though you say all the "right" things, im not buying it. Mostly bc im not going to listen to some fool when he tells me what i NEED to do. The people i respect and listen to do not talk like this. They are wise enough to know that thats a hollow form of leadership. What comes next, pass around the donation plate?
No.. ill take my cues from those that walk the walk, and nevermind those that talk the talk.
agree my grandmothers were incredible for what they did from birth in 1890s through to the early 70s
This is, of course, true, but there is a subtle and hard-to-articulate idea about how it is differently in men and women. I can recognise it but can’t explain it using clear, rational, ‘left-brain’ categories. As a result, it becomes invalidated, and we lose something important, this is one of the thingsart can do.
came here to write this - it's actually Freud's prescription for a happy life, and before him countless others - from buddha to the stoics, women were just written out of this 'masculinity' (which we might call humanity) by sexism, let us be blunt, because men were the only ones allowed to be heroes to their own story - to have protagonist syndrome, luckily society has changed and we are demanding that human right - and acknolwedging others, I disagree a tad about Taylor Sheridan's 'cure - sure it works I money terms but it's still a tad grotesque and unneccesary, it's the best end of the idiocy that sees men and women as fundamentally different in qualities. a real James Bond would do all that whilst recognising that it's simply being a decent human.
Very well said. I have no issues with Ted and other writers prescribing this advice as the epitome of good masculanity, but I just think it should apply to every decent and functional adult in society.
If I'd read this before posting my own reply, I might not have bothered. It's the perfect illustration of what I meant.