Violence =/= Masculinity
And if you equate one as the other, you need a therapist, not an audience
In one of the many “masculinity” groups I belong to, this image from Jack Donovan’s book “The Way of Men” was shared, with the original poster asking for thoughts to validate his gut feeling.
The repudiation of violent masculinity is the murder of male identity
Let’s start there
Repudiation is either:
- Rejection of a proposal or idea
- Denial of the truth or validity of something
So, effectually Jack is saying that denying the truth that violent masculinity is the identity of masculinity, is to “murder masculinity”. This might not be so bad if it was expounded on further in a salient way, but Jack goes on to condemn himself with this whole passage, specifically the second highlighted bit:
It erases the secret hope of men — the fantasy that one day they will be tested, that one day they will be thrust into a dire world at the bloody edge between life and death where everything they do will really matter
What the fuck.
Here, it’s an interim statement that locks these two into a death spiral, “the cultural repudiation of ‘The Way Of Men’ extinguishes the dream…”. Which is Jack openly copying violence as the core component of what it means to be masculine, and the namesake of his movement.
Oh brother.
That’s a lot to unpack here
And I’m going to attempt to do so, without facepalming so hard I give myself a black eye.
First off, masculinity does not have a monopoly on violence. I cannot, for the life of me understand why it is the obsession with men’s groups to turn to the appeal of violence as a metric by which they measure their masculinity. All humans are capable of violence. Whether the individual rises to violence as their first solution to a problem is due to personal upbringing, and how violence was modeled for them in childhood. A child watching a parent abuse the other will easily escape into violence as a coping mechanism or measure to enact their will, than a child who never witnessed such horror.
But group after group I come across and thousands of posts I have read, men seemingly enjoy the retreat into violence as a way “to get things done”. It exists in the zeitgeist as the “good guy with a gun” power fantasy the NRA lobby continues to use as their defense of private semi-automatic rifle ownership, and in fiction (movies, TV, books etc..) as the ultra violent male protagonist who can dispatch wave after wave of evil (I’m looking at you 300, Sin City, James Bond, and the sadly co-opted John Wick as a few examples) as a legitimate solution to an ultimate problem.
Though it isn’t just the violence that the men enjoy, it is the power of the ability to cause such violence, the domination over others through fear, and the de facto authority that comes with strength. No surprise here, there’s probably just as many stereotypes about power and control of others in fiction. The Godfather, The Departed, Goodfellas (man, mafia movies getting put on blast, but then again… they kinda deserve it)
Because that’s it right? At its core, this whole attachment to violence is an attempt to counterbalance the feeling of helplessness in our everyday lives as men. Jack acknowledges it in the paragraph below, but the implication of his statement flies over his own head as it applies to him-
Individuals trapped in a dying culture live in a twilight world. The embrace death through, infertility, concupisence (strong sexual desire), and war
We read stories about Greek mythological heroes fighting wars, beasts. History is rife with men discovering the globe, subduing the earth under their feet, conquering whole civilizations, wreaking destruction and mayhem under the banner of colonialism. Ancient masculinity is a paragon that many men of today’s binge watching, open office, comfort culture long for. Their names in history books, remembered through the ages for their immense contributions to the world.
And you know what that is?
Entitlement
It is the attitude of one who believes that violence is an acceptable, first, second or even 5th answer to a situation. That by being confident in ones ability to enact violence, others should sense and feel it, and by extension, respond to it appropriately with the wide berth of authority, respect and relinquishing control to the strongest man in the room.
- Men do not, and have never had a monopoly on violence, and if you want to play the defense that “men have been called on throughout history to defend with violence..” you must acknowledge that as many great heroes have been men; there have been just as many male villains in history. I can name a dozen male tyrants and dictators in history responsible for the hundreds of millions of deaths of innocents, can you name me a single female dictator worthy of the same? Why is being violent important to your identity? Or even the secondary, but still troublesome — being capable of violence important to your identity?
- Ancient masculinity needs to stay in the ancient world. Iphone 11’s, automated farms, oat milk for crying out loud? Spartan philosophy, asking yourself “What would a Mongol do?” Has literally no place in our society. What value systems are you measuring your life by? Because if they aren’t set in reality, how can you ever hope to succeed by them and find value in your life? Maybe your spiritual crisis of identity comes from the fact you’re modeling yourself after fictional (at minimum, sensationalized) storybook heroes?
- What bullshit fantasy realm are you living in that you hope for a “dire world at the bloody edge between life and death? How insane are you to want that as your ultimate goal in life?
I have many more questions but they’ll have to wait for a little bit. Let’s deal with these for now. Fundamentally this “way of men” is entirely farcical and flawed to its core.
If violence is inherent to all beings, not just men, it is therefore not inherently masculine, and therefore completely separate from masculinity entirely and as such should not be used as the marker that one wraps their masculine identity around. Violence isn’t masculine, it isn’t masculine to be violent. Got it?
Measuring your masculinity against long dead traditions of men is a recipe for failure as well. Culture and context are exceedingly important because the platitudes of an ancient society are so far out of date, they are at best meddlesome in modern society, and at worst destructive to potential growth one might be capable of experiencing. You’re not an English Knight , so stop acting like their moral code is relevant in this day and age. Enough with the “m’lady” crap too, it’s cringeworthy and a covert contract. We’ll cover covert contracts in another article if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Masculinity of the past is dying. And generations of men are still clamoring to it, waging war on women, minorities, persons of color, those of us who identify as LGBTQIA+, and others who don’t fit the narrow, yet miraculously ever-shifting label of traditionally masculine while they do so.
It is because these men have no identity beyond these paltry dying traditions. These men don’t believe their everyday actions don’t matter. Either through toxic childhood paradigms they continue to hold onto, traumatic memories from neglectful or abusive childhoods (Or young adult trauma suffered in military service or violent conflict) or a deeply ingrained capitalist mentality, these men are trapped in a cycle of blame and shame, unable to determine their own self worth outside of what they learned as children, and feel absolutely powerless to make any lasting change on their life because the metric for success is a Sisyphean mountain. Impossible to climb and deeply corrosive to their own self-being every time they roll back down it.
There is no identity except the one that dominates through strength, is capable of extreme violence, brings home the money, is plantation master to his beaten and subdued emotions, and above all avoids anything remotely considered feminine. These men are outward drill sergeants to their inner selves, berating themself for anything outside of the sliver of acceptable masculinity, because the glory of war, battle and honorable death are the true goals; not healthy communication of boundaries and emotions, acceptance of the fact that masculinity is a construct therefore it is whatever one chooses it to be, and that ultimately the meaning of life is the ability to define meaning in life.
This power to define masculinity outside of stoic norms of the past is what threatens the status quo. Because masculinity was so difficult to achieve and be accepted into the men of the past, the current-gen feels ownership of it, and act as gatekeepers to what is and isn’t masculine, because the bitter truth is that is it just a construct, and it holds no weight in the scheme of the universe. You cannot feed yourself with masculinity, it does not provide heat or warmth, cure the sick or wounded. It is as flimsy and unsubstantial as money, popularity and many of the other constructs that define our society.
It’s a catch-22 for the gatekeepers. They worked so hard to be accepted by those that defined the rules for them, and if they suddenly lax on the rules for the next generation, everything they will have gone through will have meant nothing. Which is in fact, the truth. Men have perpetuated our suffering by continually propping up toxic institutions. To break the cycle would be to define ourselves beyond “masculine”, and recognize that the gatekeepers before us weren’t helping us, they set unhealthy, misogynist, chauvinist, destructive standards.
And that is the way forward. Seeing the past for what it was, not rose-colored and glorified as we wish it to be. Redrawing the lines in the sand to include, instead of exclude. To feel what we feel, to deal with what is in front of us, and to heal from the pain we cause in ourselves, and others.
We can rise above continually defining ourselves as violent warriors waging battle everyday, and end the trauma of that cycle. We just have to choose it.
