The Cult of Masculinity

Beginning back when I was in college from 2007 to 2011, the modern cult of masculinity started its foray into mainstream society. For millennials, especially millennial men, how to be a man has always been a sort of weird question. We’re the generation for whom books about the failure of young men to launch we written. We are the generation of men that moved back home and played video games in the basement. In the intervening decade, a whole new idea of masculinity has cropped up in the face of “toxic masculinity” and new definitions of gender identity. A group of social media gurus saw a market opportunity and they have been selling a new masculinity.

Men’s Rights, Pick-Up Artists and Incels

Youtube, Twitter, and other social media platforms are filled with different guys, usually white and conventionally attractive, who sell their techniques in videos and e-books about how to pick up women. From a marketing standpoint, this makes sense because 2 generations of men have been raised without many abilities to date or connect outside of digital environments. It seems like everyone has social anxiety or just anxiety in general. This has often been medicated and certainly, these young men have mostly like been on a carousel of drugs. They then find themselves in adulthood looking to meet one of the basic human needs: companionship (and yes that other thing too but this isn’t that sort of site. If you want to hear me talk about…you know…come over to Rouges).

This is also the generation that generated the term: incels. Incel is internet shorthand for involuntarily celibate men. These men would like to be engaging in companionship but feel that they are shut out of the conversation and they place the blame squarely on women. The levels of toxicity that can exist within that subculture are in the extreme. However, despite the toxic nature of the dialogue, a pearl of truth can be found out. One thing is clear: the nature of dating has changed. Most people would say that dating and marriage have changed for the better. Unlike their mothers and grandmothers, women are not economically tied to men the same way. Women graduate from college at higher rates and corporate American is increasingly becoming more female over time. This has put women in a different place relating to men. In the past, where a woman might settle for a man who has a moderately good job and some bad habits, women do not feel the need to settle for the regular guy. Studies show that women have become choosier in their selection of a mate, even among working-class women. This change in the dating pool has left many men out of the dating conversation altogether. Combine this with the employment crisis of men (my new book goes into that) and you have a deadly combination of men simply being left out of society unable to find a decent job with some dignity and therefore unable to find a mate. This blends into the hierarchical structures of society, a topic on which many of these online forums thrive.

Internet culture is raft with talk about social hierarchy and the realization that most men aren’t in the hierarchy or even on the ladder. Men that might have strange interests, non-mainstream interests or don’t work out get passed over for the attractive, muscled, and square-jawed who are unaffectionately called “Chads.” These enviable gods can bed whoever they want to on looks alone. They have enough fashion sense to be attractive. They have the body, personality, and sheer masculinity to just get anyone that they desire with a little effort. For men who don’t come by this naturally, a new industry of Pick-up artists have arisen to teach them.

The PUA scene is equally as toxic as the incel subculture. Women are often treated as objects. Many of these gurus openly eschew relationships altogether and promote a lifestyle of fitness, freedom, and temporary relationships with women for companionship. The focus of the pick-up artist is to do just that: pick-up women with little expectation on anything beyond that goal of going to bed with them.

Alongside these subcultures, the men’s rights advocates have long been a voice for how society disadvantages men. Within this can also be included the MGTOW (men going their own way) subculture. Back in The Cameron Cowan Show days, I interviewed Paul Elam from A Voice for Men one of the most prominent of the men’s rights websites. The way men are treated around divorce and child custody can be truly horrifying. Rape accusations, especially false ones, can ruin a man’s life. If a man suffers domestic abuse, the police will often arrest him anyway. These stories are very real and deserve actual attention. It is a wonder that men would start gathering online to share stories and begin to advocate for themselves. Much of the perceived toxicity (some of it real, some of imagined) stems from the very real frustration at a society that in some greater or lesser degree has left men behind.

Jordan Peterson and the Lost Boys

F. Scott Fitzgerald spilled a lot of ink writing about the lost men of the 1920s. Among the glitz, glamor, and jazz of the roaring 20s, there was a certain unease to the men of that generation. It was a generation for whom it was said, “the great wars have already been won.” The Great Gatsby was a story about a lost generation of men consumed by the rising consumer culture, the breaking down of social barriers after World War I, and certain culture that grew up around the new social classes. America’s longest wars are from over but the trauma left behind in 2 groups of men is very real. In the wake of all the societal stresses and pressures facing men millennial and gen z men are most lost than ever before. Jordan Peterson and others like him have stepped in to the fill the gap that just working out and taking nootropics cannot fill. Jordan Peterson arrives on the scene with a book with 12 rules on how to live your life and has facts, figures, and tests on cognition and intelligence. He has “hard truths” to deliver and harsh words. He is the father that most of these men never had. He is the stern taskmaster that many men crave to whip them into line and get them to do things they would rather not do and to try harder than is their natural inclination.

Besides Jordan Peterson, although he is the most famous of these, there a variety of other men who are online handing out advice on how to be a better man. How to fix your financial life, fix your dating life, work out, be more fit and be all those hardcore masculine things that society doesn’t seem to find overly desirable anymore. This manhood is fearless, takes reasonable risks, is physically ready, and does not place his value or self-worth in women. Women are still important and a goal (unless you subscribe to MGTOW which is another matter) but they are only a means to an end. These men and trying to held guys in their 20s, 30s and beyond put down the gaming control and keyboard and pick up a real life outside of the online world of games and forum board posts. These men tend to be conservative but not always and they tend to be content to stand against a society in which traditional masculinity has been larger discarded in favor of a kinder, nicer, gentler man.

The appeal is a simple one: to feel like a man again. The collective emasculation of men has been the subject of books and movies for some time. Fight Club (both book and movie) is the most famous of these and is often cited as emblematic of the pressures that men face. When there are no more wars to fight, no more frontiers to conquer, and no more problems to solve, what does society do? How can a man differentiate himself in a society that doesn’t seem to welcome him into any of its institutions?

Manhood from the Left

Long-time readers will also know that I used to contribute quite often to The Good Men Project. I wrote many articles with them including a viral article about Rick and Morty. I wrote about the male archetypes and some other pop culture ideas. I had a great time writing for them. Their approach has always been to promote how men date within the new paradigm and how to fit in within the new changes that society is making. There are many on the other side of the argument who do not favor their type of masculinity. It can be a helpful template for working within a world where women are catching up to men and are competing with men. Another site I always have read and find helpful is the Art of Masculinity. For many men who do not have a strong father figure in their life, the Art of Masculinity has been an important touchstone for figuring out manhood in the 21st century. As a younger man, I read his blog daily and I learned much about what it really meant to be a man but not have to conform to the hyper-masculine idea I saw developing around me. Both of these sites focus on men meeting the right woman and having a family. Women aren’t treated as objects or anything like that. There is a respect for both genders. There is a respect for physical prowess from working out to chopping wood and be unapologetically male and having that viewed in a positive way. It is often far less toxic than what I have described earlier.

The fact that there is a cult of masculinity with multiple people selling views of manhood to men is an interesting idea from the start.

Society is Broken

When I was expanding my essay on the missing 10 million men in my new book, I came to an important conclusion about our economy and our society. Our society is just broken. the current system is not serving men well. In many ways, I don’t think it is serving women well either but we are here to talk about men. Economically, little thought was given as to what would happen to workers who were displaced by a globally competitive economy. How to help boys be successful in school has hardly entered the conversation until very recently and great advocacy still needs to be done for men in the justice system. Even more, advocacy needs to be done for fathers and more needs to be done for male victims of rape and domestic violence. One of the important aspects of feminism is the concept of male disposability. This all comes from a society that views people in generall as disposable. We live in a society that does not prioritize the needs of people. The needs of corporations and capital are primary and the needs of people only get met when it is a helpful by-product of those things. As long as things remain as they are, we will continue to raise boys who are lost and will walk willingly into the arms of men like Jordan Peterson and others who sell a masculinity that isn’t genuine and not in step with modern economics or social desires. To fix manhood we have to not only look inward at the individual choices of men but also outwards towards the society that we all live in and answer one very important questions, “What kind of world do we really want to live in?”