There's Something Absolutely Wrong with what we do to Boys...

[Ben Kenobi]

attached to a woman

Soo romantic.

[Hauldren Collider]

No, not really, not outside of cliched entertainment.

We don't do anything more ****ed up to boys than we do to girls, and we do significantly less ****ed up things than we used to. All this whining about masculinity and men's place and men's rights... it's just insecurity. Grow a ****ing pair, and live your ****ing life. This **** isn't hard.

You know what I find interesting about your attitude Guynemer? 50 years ago, it was the same attitude people who were skeptical of the need to improve women's rights might have. In fact, the best word I can use to describe it is "reactionary". I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying that you have definitely not made your case.

[Ben Kenobi]

You know what I find interesting about your attitude Guynemer? 50 years ago, it was the same attitude people who were skeptical of the need to improve women's rights might have. In fact, the best word I can use to describe it is "reactionary". I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying that you have definitely not made your case.

And my argument would be considered 'progressive'. Things need to change because new data show that boys aren't doing so well.

[Lorizael]

The very aspects of masculinity that the video decries are pervasive in every human culture known present and past. The Spanish call it machismo. The Romans equated 'Romanitas' or Roman-ness with manhood and the word virtue, which we borrow from the Latin virtus, has a cognate in the Latin vir, or man. In the Bible, a dying King David instructs his son Solomon to, "be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man" (1 Kings 2:2 KJV).

I like how "every human culture known present and past" has been reduced to a thin slice of Western culture in a single paragraph.

[Lorizael]

Data seems hard to find, but this says suicide rates of 15-24 yos more than doubled from 1950 to 2010 (4.5 to 10.0 per 100K). The rate really takes off by 1980 (12.3) and peaks in 1990 (13.2).

Female suicide rates are a fraction of male, but that's for all ages.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html

They site the CDC.

I wouldn't be surprised if the increase in the suicide rate is due at least part to better reporting.

[C0ckney]

I wouldn't be surprised if the increase in the suicide rate is due at least part to better reporting.

what appears to have happened is that the overall rate has fallen, but younger men are killing themselves more now than they used to.

[Aeson]

I read it ... expecting "Be a real man! Join the Marines!" at the end ... was disappointed

As for equality, we only force it for voting (even if we pay lip service to it elsewhere). Instinctively real men don't care about voting as there was no voting on the savannah ... so it's no problem. However, not being able to bash a voting machine to death with a cudgel is a horrible thing that should be rectified forthwith.

Even so, we have far more outlets for pent-up masculinity than any previous people. Every kid can go kill thousands of people on video games and loudly proclaim their worth to the world on the internet ... the vast majority of past generations would have found themselves quickly dead if they tried to experience such thrills of manhood.

[regexcellent]

I'll be honest I'm kind of disappointed this thread wasn't Al admitting to being a member of NAMBLA.

[Ban Kenobi]

Masculinity is not a modern cultural construct nor an American one, no matter what the video says ("We've constructed an idea of masculinity in the United States...").

The full quote is "we've constructed an idea of masculinity in the United States that doesn't give young boys a way to feel secure in their masculinity... so we make them go prove it all of the time". I honestly don't know how you got the impression that the video was claiming that masculinity is modern or American in origin.

The very aspects of masculinity that the video decries are pervasive in every human culture known present and past. The Spanish call it machismo. The Romans equated 'Romanitas' or Roman-ness with manhood and the word virtue, which we borrow from the Latin virtus, has a cognate in the Latin vir, or man. In the Bible, a dying King David instructs his son Solomon to, "be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man" (1 Kings 2:2 KJV). Every human society has developed an idea of manhood equated with strength, competitiveness, courage, risk-taking, mental and physical toughness, and sacrifice for the benefit of the weak.

I'm not sure how you made that generalization based on your knowledge of Spanish, Latin, and the Bible, but go on...

The universality of masculine attributes exists because it is not a cultural construct, but a biological identity. A boy in the video astutely makes the observation that masculinity is instinctive. Men have been selectively bred, through half a million years of evolution, to demonstrate these traits as part of our sexual dimorphism; it is our peacock’s tail. Our cultural artefacts that we associate with masculinity have their root and their sustainment in our biological dispositions. They were not created out of thin air by some malevolent entity to impose male hegemony but are, to borrow Richard Dawkins’ terminology, an extended phenotype to our genetics.

I think the peacock's tail metaphor is interesting. It's been argued that the purpose of a peacock's tail is to show to potential mates that the peacock has good genes because only a strong and healthy peacock can survive with the handicap of a huge, unwieldy tail. That's a very interesting take on machismo.

Now, that is not to say that there are not negative aspects of masculinity nor that masculinity evolved on the savanna with its half a million years of cultural accessories fits perfectly in our 21st century world. In fact, I would contend that many of the problems the video associates with masculinity are actually issues with the imposition of modern restraints on manhood and the weakening of male image.

Men are competitive. Every man sees a rival in his brother men. Societies have traditionally fostered this sense of competition through war, sport, and economics. Male self-value is linked tightly with social standing. Men desire to be leaders of men, to be perceived as stronger mentally, physically, and emotionally than other men, and to have more. A man who is stronger will be the leader of the pack, will have the best wife, etc. A man’s worth is determined by his victories, whether in sports wins, his heroism, money earned, his house and car, his wife, etc.

I see that in your worldview it's only possible for a small minority of men to be satisfied at any given time, since it's impossible for every man to be a leader of men, or have "the best wife", or have the most money. I guess it would blow your mind if some men told you that they really don't care if other people are doing better than them as long as they are doing well themselves.

But this competitive desire to be an alpha male is incongruous with the forced egalitarianism of modern Western society.

Yes, modern society thinks everyone should live a fulfilling life and not just the guy with the most money and the best wife.

Not only are all men equal but all women are equal to men, as well.

Is this a problem...?

Not only is this contrary to our biological impulses but it is contrary to hundreds of millennia of cultural ideas of manhood. We need to be an alpha male; we compete to achieve some semblance of a tribal leader. We desire not only self-empowerment but power over others but society castrates men with equality, leaving this desire unfulfilled. That powerlessness, that nagging disillusionment, produces many of the supposed excesses of manhood. It frustrates us and makes us lash against the world and influences the high criminality and suicide rates among males.

The vast majority of men throughout history have not been "alpha males" and yet most of them did not turn to a life of crime or kill themselves.

Now, obviously, that is not to say that human equality is not a laudable goal, but we need to be aware of the negative effects it has on the male psyche. The video seems to recognize that modern society is incongruous with traditional ideas of manhood and, dismissing masculinity as a mere cultural construct, implies that we need to redefine manhood.

That should be easy since manhood has already been redefined in the space of a few paragraphs. Originally, you claimed that all societies equate masculinity with "strength, competitiveness, courage, risk-taking, mental and physical toughness, and sacrifice for the benefit of the weak". Now, however, you've simplied masculinity to nothing more than competitiveness and a desire to dominate other people and on this basis you've claimed that egalitarianism emasculates men and drives men to crime and suicide.

I contend doing so would only increase the excesses of masculinity in an unmasculine world. Our biology has adapted one way and faced with conflict between nature and society, we attempt to further undermine nature and wonder why things get worse? Why are all these problems manifesting themselves now, in an ever-more equal society, as patriarchy is in its decline? It should not be a surprise that male frustration will follow the discrediting of traditional masculine values and the condemnation of demonstrated male attributes.

I don't see much evidence that contemporary society rejects or discredits "strength, competitiveness, courage, risk-taking, mental and physical toughness, and sacrifice for the benefit of the weak". We still live in a capitalist society where acts of charity are looked upon favorably, last I checked.

Rather than redefine masculinity, a Sisyphean task given its intense biological roots, we need an outlet. We need to recognize how modern society, influenced by egalitarianism and feminism, disempowers men and how excesses like criminality, violence, depression, and suicide, are biological reactions to this cultural castration. We need to empower men with an outlet to express their competitive desires. I do not know what method would satisfy this instinct but before we explore solutions, we must make sure we are tackling the problem the right way and finding the actual causes. It is my contention that the video and modern gender studies approach masculinity the wrong way. Once we are on the same page, we can discover solutions.

Rather than redefine what it means to be men, we need an outlet to prove ourselves as men.

We already have an outlet. Ever heard of football? Or the global capitalist system for that matter, since it provides plenty of opportunities for competitiveness, courage, risk-taking and mental toughness.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Peacock's tail. It's better for the individual peacock to have a smaller tail.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Rather than redefine what it means to be men, we need an outlet to prove ourselves as men.

If you were a traditional aboriginal Australian of certain parts of the Northern territories. you'd do that by sodomising a younger man.

Just saying.

[Elok]

Don't forget ancient Greece, BFB!

i'm not sure i see your point here i'm afraid. if i have a weapon and don't use it, i'm not comitting any violence, no matter how big or nasty it is.

Well, the book's called "The better angels of our nature," not "the frustration of our murderous impulses, with subsequent redirection onto punier targets."

[C0ckney]

i think that redirection is a strange way of looking at it. stronger countries/tribes/kingdoms have always attacked punier targets. the genocides in the americas, the colonisation of africa etc. so in fact what has happened is that the big powers no longer fight wars against each other, so less violence is taking place.

[EPW]

****ing facists thought the samje way as you alb. you just dont ****nig no it . **** off.

[Elok]

i think that redirection is a strange way of looking at it. stronger countries/tribes/kingdoms have always attacked punier targets. the genocides in the americas, the colonisation of africa etc. so in fact what has happened is that the big powers no longer fight wars against each other, so less violence is taking place.

But we plainly were redirecting it. The violence in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan (w/the Russians), and sundry other mini-states were fights between us and various communist powers we didn't dare battle directly due to the threat of nuclear bombardment. A simple comparison of butchered corpses to total number of people available to kill is misleading; the wars were just as brutal, but in undeveloped countries even the ghastliest atrocities didn't rack up as high of a body count.

I've heard two major criticisms of Pinker, aside from the charge of simplistic arithmetic. The first is that modern medicine makes it possible to survive much more serious wounds. Most of the people who died in our Civil War would have survived today, albeit crippled for life (as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan). The second is that the world's population rose dramatically in the latter half of the twentieth century, due to vastly improved farming techniques, so that a per-capita violent-death statistic only reflects the failure of war to keep up.