Jackie Summers weighs in on the conversation about good men.
The strong protect the weak.
This is not romantic, or chivalrous. It’s not how things are but it’s how they should be.
Why? Because that’s how we all survive.
In a military formation, it is always strategically unsound to separate the strong from the weak, the experienced from the inexperienced. You mix ranks, so the brave don’t leap ahead and the timid don’t fall behind. You survive together, or you don’t survive at all.
Eons ago we had to defend ourselves against things that would sup on us. Because nature–in her infinite wisdom–saw fit to assign testosterone distribution disproportionately in favor of men, they were called to task. Procreation in and of itself was insufficient to ensure your DNA continued; it was your job to protect and provide for your woman and your progeny.
Based on this all manner of rituals of manhood developed. Did men want to do this? Who knows? Maybe some did. As a species we all did what we had to in order to move forward. In any case, masculinity was measured by your ability–real or perceived–to care for others.
The pattern for abuse was set and the paradoxes established. The ability to protect became the capacity to dominate. Power has been and continues to be misused.
Flash forward six or ten millennia and the same motifs permeate the marrow of these arguments, although how strength is defined has–rightly–become more nuanced. My best friend is a hundred pound blue-eyed blonde who–as a teenager–was a nationally ranked figure skater. I’ve had to (reluctantly) admit: by every quantifiable measure, she’s a better athlete than I. She’s faster, more agile, more flexible and–pound for pound–stronger than me. I however am a big scary black guy with bowling balls for shoulders and tree trunks for thighs. If for some reason physical protection was necessary, I’d be the obvious choice. Her net worth, on the other hand, is equivalent to the GDP of a developing nation.
Chances she’d require protection by me or someone like me? Slim to none.
In the world we live in strength has many definitions. Emotional, mental, financial, and empathic strength count now as much as physical strength did ten thousand years ago. The fact that this has–thank god–changed permanently–has left many struggling for definition, for identity.
Which is why we ask the question: why attempt to define what a “good man” is?
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Bad men exist. This is undeniable.
This is because bad people exist, and men are a subset of people. The world has always had bad men, because the world has always had bad people. Men who hurt. Men who maim. Men who kill.
Good men exist. Also undeniable.
This is because good people exist, and men are a subset of people. The world has always had good men, because the world has always had good people. Men who heal. Men who protect. Men who would sacrifice their lives and limbs for the greater good.
Neither goodness nor badness are gender specific.
There is–historically–one tried method of defeating bad men: good men.
As we will likely never inhabit a world devoid of moral polarity and every shade of moral complexity, we explore the nature of goodness so we can pose a response to badness, in its infinite manifestations. We learn to heal those who are hurt. We attempt to prevent harm if at all possible. We define the world inside us, that we can influence the world outside us.
This is not romantic, or chivalrous. It’s not how things are but it’s how they should be.
Why? Because that’s how we all survive.
We will always be mixed ranks. We will rarely share the same ideology. The choice to leap forward or fall behind will always be that–a choice–but we can survive together, or we won’t survive, at all.
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image by jikan / flickr
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This column was written as a response to Paul Elam’s post All This Goodness is Killing Me.
“Because nature–in her infinite wisdom–saw fit to assign testosterone distribution disproportionately in favor of men, they were called to task. Procreation in and of itself was insufficient to ensure your DNA continued; it was your job to protect and provide for your woman and your progeny.” You’ve been reading your Stanley Fish, haven’t you? You know, arguing for naked preference in lieu of equality because said equality cannot exist–but don’t let people know that this is what you’re doing! I’m tired of feminists and their sympathizers embracing essentialism when it suits them and an ardent and obfuscatory social constructionism when… Read more »
Brendan, I’ve never heard of Stanley Fish, but you really might want to review the commenting policy here before you anyone to screw off. It will get you banned.
JFB
Brendan, best post of the entire thread (though I do agree the “screw you” was probably a bit much even though I was thinking the same thing while reading Summers’ piece).
Jackie, your writing is always top-notch.
You have such excellent ethics, clarity of thoughts, and you convey them through effective wording.
Chapeau!
I have only one little disagreement with your post: nowadays is – mostly – not about survival (it certainly was).
I’d say that now our collaboration as a species is more about quality of life, prosperity and fulfillment: and, as you said, those goals can only be reached together.
United we stand; divided we fall. 😉
Crescendo, thank you. I’d agree 100% that–in the First World–the issue is largely a quality of life issue. This is the argument made by the Occupy movement: live simply that others may simply live. In many underdeveloped nations, where running water, sanitation, communicable disease and hunger are still an issue, I’d wager that collaboration–not just within your community but without, with global neighbors–is more crucial than ever.
JFB
Is a weak man also a good man? While I would like to believe that the “strong protect the weak”, this has traditionally only applied for women and children. Weak men aren’t protected by anyone, they are marginalized and ignored by women and strong men.
No, they just become geeks and then they make lots of money and aren’t ignored anymore. 😉
I’m kidding, sort of. 😀 I do agree that’s a sucky situation, but a lot of guys who are weak and bullied when they were young do come out the better for it later in life.
Bad Man, I think we’d need to address weakness in order to answer that question adequately. Like strength, its definition has become nuanced over the centuries. Take Professor Stephen Hawking for example. Although his body is atrophied because of his medical condition, his intellect makes him one of the most influential men on earth. If influence equals power, this also makes him one of the strongest people on earth. For the sake of argument, in this instance we are defining good as that which willingly and actively resists bad. This can be done physically, intellectually, financially, spiritually. Physical frailty didn’t… Read more »
I love that you give our strengths equal footing. The mom who carries her 8-20lb baby for hours is strong, as the guy lifting the heavy boxes. Steve Hawking is strong, Gandhi was strong. This is refreshing. I am a mother and I have one on the way. Anyone who goes through the hell of the first trimester, (really, why does it have to be so bad?) the pain of childbirth, and the challenge of motherhood is a warrior as far as I’m concerned. Just as the warrior on the battlefield is just as much of a warrior. There are… Read more »
“challenge of motherhood is a warrior as far as I’m concerned. Just as the warrior on the battlefield is just as much of a warrior. There are all kinds of warriors!”
Well, if you’re going to call mothers warriors, then call warriors mothers respectively.
In recent news:
I have re-named my cat as a Parrot,because the challenge of being a cat is definitely parrot-like.
Sheesh!
This is the essence of the modern disease afflicting western civilization though; we are awash with intellectual dishonesty. This is where we cease to give words definite meanings, our very language becomes debased and it becomes impossible to properly discuss anything since whatever you say just comes out as a torpid slurry devoid of substance.
There are these things called metaphors.
No, it is not metaphor, it is Orwelian duck-speak and our societies are now rife with it.
So, if I were to say volunteers are saints, your logic concludes I must mean all saints are volunteers respectively?
Neither goodness nor badness are gender specific. Yes, precisely! Thank you, Jackie! WRT The Bad Man’s comment, well, I have a very personal counter-example. My ex-husband lost his father when he was 10 years old. His dad was wheelchair or lounger-bound for most of his life due to severely debilitating and extraordinarily painful rheumatoid arthritis. I believe he died to due to complications related to the RA. My ex-husband’s mom not only stuck by his side, but provided for the family, and cared for her husband until the day he died. She often affectionately told stories about him, often funny… Read more »
Correction. I just looked it up which I should have done before posting. It was not brain cancer. It was Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
What a truly awesome post. All I can say is thank you, Jackie.
Great job, Jackie, as usual in presenting the plain, simple truth.
Mixed ranks as a desirable trait is a very nice way to frame it. And it not need be for altruistic reasons that we help those that need help – as it’s near guaranteed that those we help will end up saving us in return. The whole reason for diversity and mixed ranks is one of hedging our bets. Not only is it good for them, but it’s also good for us.
Elissa, humanity will always be a smorgasbord of every imaginable range. While our motives may not always be altruistic, efficacy demands we think of others and not ourselves alone.
JFB
I agree. There is a sense of personal altruism sure, but I do think there can be a group altruism in place that we don’t always comprehend. Great post.
Regarding protecting and providing for women, you’re right that its not happening as overtly as it was but men, even men that have nothing to do women cannot, not protect and provide for them so long as they are paying tax and being in the same vicinity as them. Chivalry and protecting and provide for women is alive and well in the form of a huge structure of special programs and laws in every sphere that put ladies first, men put more into this welfare and state system than they take out, while the reverse is true for women. A… Read more »
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There is also the largely unappreciated under class of mainly male workers that do all the dirty and dangerous jobs that keep everything going.
So yeah, the system of men protecting and providing for women is still there and going strong, it just looks different.
Male, the argument could be made that people pay tax and people do dangerous jobs.
JFB
Sure, and its would be politically correct to make that argument but it would gloss over the fact that the people that are doing the underclass jobs and putting more tax in the than they take out are men (as a class) and the people that aren’t doing the underclass jobs and taking more tax out then they put in are women (as a class) – the system of men protecting and providing for women hasn’t changed all that much, it just looks slightly different.
I just want to second this point. 90 percent or more of the dangerous, dirty jobs are done by men. Even if you are the only male in an office full of women you will feel this effect: guess who gets called to pull heavy boxes off shelves and take out over-filled garbages.
Forgotten, to be clear, I’m not disagreeing with this point. Nature still assigns men a disproportionate amount of testosterone. Do men want more dangerous jobs? Maybe some do. Is this fair? It never was or will be. The point I make is: based on what whatever gifts we’ve been given, we’re also given the capacity to choose to move forward together, or not. As someone who worked in magazine publishing–a field 95% dominated by women–I was often the person asked to (in addition to my regular workload) pull heavy boxes off shelves. My willing cooperation only made my female co-workers… Read more »
Could you name a significant unpleasantry they helped with?
I don’t accept the line that it will “never be fair”. That is always uttered by the people championing the side with the advantage. I worked in an office full of young, healthy women, and yet always got dragged out of my workspace by my manager to do the heavy lifting, that is SEXISM. I have seen it in every workplace ever in my life. If it is ok for men to be 90% of the garbage collectors, it should be ok for men to be 75% of the elected officials/doctors/etc.
I could cite dozens of examples, but here’s one: as a Director of Production it was my responsibility to compile a weekly status report, gathering data from every department on every essay, piece of artwork, and the status of their completion. This was tedious, detail-oriented and time-consuming, often distracting me from other responsibilities. My second-in-command–a woman–gladly took extra time (at no extra pay) to compile this for me, as it played to her particular strengths. How advantage is determined is relative: each of us has different propensities. We all exist as a melange of abilities which–through nature or nurture–we exceed… Read more »
So you delegated work that was in your rough job responsibilty to a subordinate, and that is comparable to being the one called upon to do physical tasks that aren’t a part of the job? I don’t see that as comparable. I also didn’t get any such trades in the workplaces I was in, just constant interruptions from my work. I actually remember my manager giving me shit for putting files into smaller boxes. When she told me that it was a waste of time/space I asked her if she was going to be the one getting 40lb boxes off… Read more »
As a Director specializing in team dynamics, I assigned people tasks best suited to their strengths. As a CEO, I defer to my Operations Director or Director of Brand Development when the subjects of their expertise arise.
As far as the lifeboat goes, my woman was a competitive swimmer from the age of seven. If we’re on a boat it starts to sink, I want her on a lifeboat before me because I love her
JFB
I love that you focus on the dynamics of teams, and playing to the strengths of the participants. That’s something every director should do. Heck, families should. Sometimes what “strength” is is the question isn’t it? And it can shift. If I’m better at something than a fellow in my office, why shouldn’t I be doing it? So forth and so on.
I can’t imagine having to deal with the lifeboat issue. I suppose I’d wind up drowning trying to convince my husband to get on the boat. I swim much better anyway.
At my place of work the custodial staff is primarily female as well. They work quite late and I often work late and see them and wonder about the fundamental fairness of any of it. Class stuff comes up for me more than gender these days, though often there are gender lines that things seem to fall on. I take your point below Jackie, that this isn’t so much a first world issue at the moment, that collaboration between those with various strengths and weaknesses is more important on a global level than it is thinking about who is taking… Read more »
Men may have more brute strength and and are asked to perform more heavy labor, but let’s not forget that way more women than men are the primary caregivers when it comes to raising children. One of the toughest jobs there is, but one that is still not considered “work” because they are not drawing a salary. But I would say it takes all the strength in the world to be a full-time hands-on parent.
This was meant as a reply to responder Male’s first comment, don’t know if that was clear. Jackie, I think it’s an excellent article.
Amy, an excellent physics reference would be: how heavy is a rock? The question is faulty; you can determine how much a rock weighs, but how heavy it is depends on how long you have to carry it. I’ve often seen mothers carry babies that weigh anywhere from 8-20 pounds–with one arm–seemingly indefinitely. From this I conclude that, while I may possess a greater ability to raise a heavy weight, the ability to hold a (relatively) light weight aloft for an extended period of time is equally challenging.
JFB
AmyR
Saying being a mother is the hardest job in the world is a mainstay for marketing to women by flattery, but is it true or is it a factoid that has been repeated so many times we believe it it be?
This conversation reminds me of this Bill Burr routine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLHjvQJ9y_w
This is excellent writing. The analogies are great and brought the ideas and points full circle. Thanks for the simplified history and clarity of how things came to be.
Michelle, I’m certain this could be argued from many perspectives academically; it may be oversimplified. Maybe there’s more meaning in less words.
JFB
Well said, thanks for writing 🙂
Thank you Peter.
JFB
Jackie thanks as always for setting us all straight and telling the truth. I find it riveting and clarifying.
Following your lead, Tom.
JFB