“…gangsta culture is the essence of patriarchal masculinity.”
Jack Donovan introduces his book, The Way of Men, with this quote from feminist author bell hooks, because it encapsulates two of Donovan’s arguments about masculinity. The first is that there is a difference between being a good man and being good at being a man, and that men admire the latter a great deal more than the former. The second is that when it comes to defining and evaluating masculinity, only the opinions of other men matter.
“Ultimately, defining masculinity is a logic problem which then presents a philosophical problem,” Donovan wrote in our email interview. “I had to determine which virtues would be most specific to a small group of men depending on each other for survival—because that’s the social organization that made us what we are today.”
As Donovan sees it, contemporary society offers a “masculinity of convenience” that belies our true desires. Where once, our daily lives tested men, the 21st century offers fewer real opportunities for men to prove themselves in mastery, courage, strength, and honor. The virtues of civilization—art, culture, justice—are in the realm of “the good man.”
His point about “gangsta culture” is that as much as we say we admire “good men,” and say things like, “it takes a real man to be a father,” we demonstrate who we really admire, and reveal what is lacking in our own lives, by who we watch: killers, men who take chances, work outside the system, and demand the respect of other men. Donovan rejects the service sector worker-citizen and family man as a model of modern masculinity; this masculinity is thwarted, impeded by every cog of civilization. Americans don’t believe in this kind of heroism: the everyman who takes public transit to a dense urban center packed with men and women of all ages, toils in anonymity, and serves his family. We import Japanese samurai movies, not the very popular (in Japan) salaryman genre. In the West, the masculine ideal is a loner, not a husband or a corporate drone, who drives down the highway alone, impeded by no custom or law.
Watching samurais and playing Grand Theft Auto are just a couple of those socially sanctioned outlets for our masculine drives: the ones we trade satisfaction of, for greater comfort and security. Sports, war, and violent video games remain, but outlets with real stakes are fewer: in business, politics, sports, or war, traditional proving grounds of masculinity. Are men in worse shape as a result, with consequences to all of civilization? Will we devolve to a point of no return, and is this even a cause for concern: that we are shutting off all possible futures but the one in which we are utterly dependent, ignorant, and weak?
The machines by which we form and prove our masculinity are outside our control, except in choosing which machine to enter. On one hand, Donovan admits that the soldier shipping off today doesn’t know much about what he’s heading into, and doesn’t have much control over what he’s asked to do. The media and military-industrial complex, politicians and the economy all conspire to make signing up look as honorable as it ever was. Donovan seems to admire soldiers for showing more character than the people who criticize them, while also admitting that, among the main reasons soldiers join is not a burning desire to serve mankind, but a desire to prove himself among other men, and a paucity of options for doing so.
Read an excerpt from The Way of Men, “On Being a Good Man” and an interview with book author Jack Donovan on The Good Life.
—Photo credit: newskin0/Flickr
About Justin Cascio
I hope this abstract isn’t representative of the book’s argument. There is too much contradictory evidence (sitcoms, commercials, best-sellers, love songs, etc.) to support this thesis about what Americans “believe.” Books like this, if this is what it’s really like, ought to start with a theory of generalities before pushing off with them and kicking like hell to their main argument.
Masculinity now runs off in so many disparate directions that there probably is no point of convergence. Arguments like the one encapsulated above seem to express a wish that there were one, a stable place to start from—and return to—in a world of confusing demands. And anyway, setting up “gangsta culture” as an explanatory pole is dated and sensationalistic. Naive, too. The executive culture is more pervasive and at the summit of its historical moment, with far more influence than a subgenre of popular music will ever have. If you want to see patriarchalism in a particularly potent form, why not start with the business culture?
Donovan’s book doesn’t spend a lot of time looking at popular culture. He’s more concerned with classical definitions of masculinity, though he told me he read a very wide range in coming up with his definition of masculinity for his book, including feminist texts. The bit about what Americans import from Japan was my own take on Donovan’s take on Western culture. The “gangsta culture” is in keeping with his overall view on what makes a civilization: that it is based on small, survival bands—gangs—and his point that it is in this sort of setting that our most important attributes as men become critical.
May I also recommend returning tomorrow to read the interview, and reading the book itself. A chapter is available here on the site to read for free.
Mike, I hope you do not honestly believe that gangsta culture is limited to a musical genre. That would signify your lack of understanding of my people.
I would also say that there is little reason to begin a discussion of manliness with executives because they represent a rather small portion of the human population.
My idea of gangster culture ended with George Raft. He wasn’t a made man, but he traveled with them. He could dress, he could dance, he could act – not an actor with a wide range, but what he did he did to perfection.
Justin, not sure if you actually proof-read your article or simply ran it through spell-check, but as published here it reads : “…. feminist author bell hooks…” Bell Hooks is her proper name and so should be capitalized.
Something profoundly and sadly ironic about misspelling a feminist author’s name when her quote is used to create your introductory sentence.
Whoever’s responsibility — writer or GMP editor — pretty poor showing for a publication about consciousness.
Actually that may not be the case.
From wiki:
“Gloria Jean Watkins (born September 25, 1952), better known by her pen name bell hooks (intentionally uncapitalized),[1][2] ”
It’s not always some plot to hurt feminists….
Thank you, Danny. You are correct.
Zigy, I am familiar enough with the feminist author bell hooks to know that she never capitalizes her name. The real irony is how richly you call me out on the supposed error.
Danny, thank you for noting that bell hooks spells her name without capitalizing.
Justin, apologies to you for not doing my own fact-checking before posting, and thank you for pointing out that my post sounded more aggressive than i intended (and that’s my ONGOING work in the world…).
Z
It’s all good zigy.
…..sounded more aggressive than i intended (and that’s my ONGOING work in the world…).
Welcome to my world.
Pays not to disparage a thorough proof-reader nor intentionally try and kick-off warfare. There’s too much of that online.
“I had to determine which virtues would be most specific to a small group of men depending on each other for survival—because that’s the social organization that made us what we are today.”
I read the excerpt and there’s a lot I found wrong with it, but the above quote sort of exemplifies my biggest problem, which is it’s treatment of history. That quote, right there, is just not true Yes, early cultures were probably made up of small groups of people, that part is accurate. But the idea that the quest for survival somehow shaped human beings into what they are today is an extremely outdated way to look at prehistoric cultures.
1. Prehistoric cultures were not more primitive or somehow closer to our biological drives than modern cultures. A man in the Paleolithic was no more (or less) encultured and socialized than a man living today. They were just encultured in different ways. This is related to the whole “peaceful Indian” misconception, that somehow a smaller, less technologically advanced society is more in tough with their natural selves and less influenced by cultural clutter. That’s wrong.
2. Prehistoric cultures weren’t uniform. Suggesting that the most important thing when it comes to defining masculinity is subsistence and group-size is far too simplistic. It assumes that all prehistoric peoples must have had the same definitions of masculinity…or at least had the same ideas of what it means to “be good at being a man,” which is false.
3. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again…you cannot draw a direct cause-effect line from prehistoric cultures through to modern day cultures. Modern day cultures didn’t come directly from prehistoric cultures…that’s social Darwinism. People from different cultures interact, and cultures shift and change. Societies fall and their cultural baggage disappears, and so people create new ways of behaving and understanding the world. And that has been happening to human cultures for as long as there has been human beings.
4. Cultural norms aren’t always a logical reaction to environment or biology. This sort of goes back to #1, when I was saying that prehistoric definitions of masculinity weren’t somehow more ‘in tune’ with biology than modern day. But the same goes for pretty much all social constructions…they don’t always make sense.
5. Prehistoric life was not a daily struggle for survival against the elements. That’s a rather romantic and inaccurate picture. During periods and regions where the environment was quite fertile, non-agricultural societies were actually pretty well off and had a crap ton of free time, at least compared to early agricultural societies (and compared to modern day work-aholics). Prehistoric societies were not necessarily constructed around this survival-first mentality, and so definitions of masculinity were not necessarily about survival.
(Forgot something)
6. We don’t actually know a whole lot about gender roles and norms in the majority of human cultures. It’s difficult to study the gender dynamics of a past prehistoric culture; there is no one to talk to about it and there are no written records left behind. The state of preservation of archaeological sites as well as modern technology used in excavation and analysis of artifacts and human remains does quite limit our ability to understand past cultures, particularly when it comes to understanding social identities (such as gender). Add onto that the fact that it’s only fairly recently that archaeologists have concerned themselves with understanding identities of past cultures…and it means that our understanding of gender in most past cultures is limited. Sometimes we actually don’t know anything about gender norms an roles in a particular culture.
OK. So let’s say that there is an inadequate historical record on gender roles. norms, behaviors, etc. I don’t think its wrong to look at the recorded history that we do have, and draw conclusions from it. It may not be complete, but it does exist.
Right well the rest of my above comment still stands (1-5), which points out why the conclusions Donovan drew are a problem. But here’s the other thing…the vast majority of cultures which have existed are cultures we have very little knowledge about. I am (was) an archaeologist; I agree you can draw conclusions about specific cultures using very limited ethnographic comparisons, otherwise I’d be out of a job. But you can’t draw wide conclusions about all (or even most) cultures, because we just don’t know enough about most cultures to make those sweeping conclusions.
1. Mr. Donovan does not say that primitive men were more “in touch” with their biological imperatives. What he says is that the biological imperatives were a higher priority back then. Men and women spent more of their time and energy on those biological imperatives than we do today.
2. Mr Donovan does not posit that prehistoric cultures (nor modern ones) were identical. What he does suggest s that there are/were some common elements within them with regards to gender roles.
3. You’re at least half-right, and at least half-wrong. As an African-American, I can point to elements of my culture that can be traced back to Africa. I can point to elements of my culture that are specifically European. And I can tell you about the things that we colored folk invented here in the United States.
4. I can agree with you that cultural elements are not always a reaction to biology or environment. Yet there are many cultural elements that do harken to biology, environment, and both. Between nature and nurture exist many balance points.
5. Your theory that prehistoric communities did not hold survival in high priority is curious. I grew up in a housing project in Boston. Crime was everywhere. I put a high priority on getting home from school alive, uninjured, and with all of my belongings. When I was 19, I moved to Philadelphia. The surrounding neighborhood where I lived was saturated with pimps. hookers, pushers, and addicts. On my first day in the city, I assessed the situation and went out and purchased a knife so I would have some protection. Now I live in a rural part of Pennsylvania. People out here have at least 2 things in common: dogs and guns.I have my own guns, and the dogs will be here shortly. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing inaccurate nor romantic about the daily struggle that we humans call life. In my world, I have to be ready to put my foot up somebody’s ass every time I turn around.
1. Except that they didn’t spend more time or energy on their biological survival, not necessarily. Biological needs weren’t necessarily a higher priority. This goes along with #5 and your description of living in a project in Boston. You seem to be assuming that prehistoric people were all living in the untamed wilderness and what-not…that danger was around every corner. They weren’t, necessarily. Hunting, fishing and gathering in a fertile area generally means that you spend less time and energy acquiring food than an early agricultural society would. I can’t remember the exact numbers that have been estimated, but it was pretty low. While they were at home, in their camp/houses/whatever, they were relatively safe.
2. I explained why drawing such broad conclusions was problematic below. As to their common themes with regards to gender roles, that’s just not necessarily true. Not the least of which is something I haven’t even brought up yet, but there’s nothing saying that prehistoric cultures necessarily had two genders, even. You can’t just ignore third genders because they don’t fit the theory you already have.
3. I didn’t saw absolutely nothing gets carried over between cultures over time. I said you can’t draw a direct cause-effect line. As you pointed out with your own culture, it’s a mix of influences historically and geographically. Same goes for everyone. And that mix is complicated…it’s not as easy as saying “this practice came from here” and “this tradition came from there.” Over time the different cultures and traditions that make up your own culture can mix and meld, so that the explanation and logic for a certain tradition now might not be the same as it was a few centuries ago.
4. My point is that you can’t start from the conclusion that certain cultural trends must be a reaction to biology or the environment, or whatever. And you can’t always assume that the perceived logic for a certain custom is necessarily why that custom came about. Humans have a great ability to rationalize our behaviour and create a reason why we do something when there is none.
1. How can you be so certain of our position? Was life safer 1,000,000 years ago than it it now?
2.a. If one wants to explore the gender roles, identities, and patterns that DO exist today, I see no problem with tracing them back into antiquity.
2.b. I am unaware of the existence of any third gender in any species. What are you talking about?
4. If there is no reason to do something, then “something” is unlikely to occur. Shit happens for a reason.
1. Well humans weren’t around 1 million years ago…but never mind that. I didn’t say humans were safer in the past…I just said it wasn’t this constant struggle for survival pop-culture has made it out to be. As to how I know that? Well first there has been research done on modern-day prehistoric peoples, examining how much energy and time they expend to acquire food. Mind, as I pointed out, that sort of comparison only goes so far. There’s also been a great deal of research on the human remains of prehistoric people from the past, examining the common ailments people died of, their average life expectancy, etc. There’s been experimental archaeology, where archaeologists use the tools of specific cultures to try to hunt/farm/whatever, to see what expends the most energy. Similarly, if you look at the artifacts found from ancient cultures…well someone had to make them. Some objects take a great deal of skill to make, and yet may have been made by the same people who hunted/gathered/etc. These people had some time on their hands. And finally, even when we’re talking about ‘protecting’ people…a huge chunk of that may have fallen to religious/shaman types. The only perceived dangers weren’t physical.
2a. As I explained, there isn’t a straight line back to antiquity. You end up jumping from one culture we know about to another culture we know about, assuming that what happened in between doesn’t matter.
2b. See here. These are people who are not considered men or women. Many cultures have/had third genders. I bring this up, because Donovan’s article seems to imply that in past prehistoric societies, survival was a priority and thus masculinity was a more biologically driven form of masculinity….but really there are plenty of prehistoric cultures that create third genders which are not necessarily reflective of biology.
4. We create reasons for why we do things, but sometimes it’s not always logical…or rather sometimes the logic we use is very specifically to a culture. There’s a group in Papua New Guinea I reference a lot where the men are primary caregivers and the women farm. Why? We often argue that it makes the most sense, biologically, for women to be primary caregivers…but that’s not necessarily the case. The way in which we divide parenting is very culturally specific…we just assume the reason must be because it’s natural or normal or the “best way.”
Alright, for example, let’s take the concept that men are more lustful than women. That’s biology, right? They need to spread their seed or whatever…so modern western ideas about gender and sex are that men want sex more. I’ve even seen the argument made that because it’s biology, prehistoric people must have had the same ideas about men and sex. And so someone draws the long line through history saying that, obviously, throughout history men have always been viewed as more sexual. Well firstly, that’s something we don’t actually know about prehistoric people…whether they though men were more sexual than women. My guess is that, like now, different cultures had different concepts about how sex and gender interact.
Except what they skip over is the huge chunk of time in European history where women were assumed to be more lustful. That’s right. At the time men were thought to be more logical and women were thought to be ruled by their emotions…and lust is an emotion. Tell a medieval man that he was biologically programmed to be hornier than his wife, and he’d just laugh in your face.
That’s what I mean when I say gender norms don’t follow this strict cause/effect line from one period into another.
You’re making a mistake trying to argue the subtleties of cultures with people who want to believe in acting out some ancient biology-is-destiny scenario.
Note that Milo’s responses to you are always terse, and ignore most of what you write. He has chosen the ever-present possibility of violence as the fundamental condition of masculinity, if not humanity. Anything you say beyond or outside of that has little chance of convincing him.
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
Not everyone enjoys a filibuster.
Nor does everyone appreciate close examination of the issues. To some – especially those with a distaste for the ivory towers – history is a simple tale and facts are simple things. You use them like tools or weapons, and there can be no qualification, no debate.
I think that what Milo said is right. “ever-present possibility of violence as the fundamental condition of masculinity” It’s not a possibility, it’s a reality. A reality that many may not want to accept but it is real.
GMP would very much like to soften masculinity but the truth is, masculinity isn’t a warm and fuzzy let’s all hold hands and talk about our feelings life. I get the feeling that there is an effort to redefine and force a change in masculinity. That’s not to say that in todays efforts in allowing men a deeper understanding of who they are is wrong but it shouldn’t happen that they sacrifice other aspects of their masculinity.
I didn’t see Milo saying that he’s violent but more so that he can be if he had to be. He simply sees society for what it is and is ready.
Society can be violent and I often see women pointing this out
in terms of sexuAl assault and abuse, something men fall victim to as well. It seems to be ok or welcome here for men to say that yes they experience a world filled with potential danger some from men. Women too are aware of the dangers that may be posed though pointing out those fears here has gotten pushback. Should we relax into a world of danger, violence, and “on guard” men ready to fight And kill? Should women hide under male protection or should they also be warriors? Or should we all look towards other ways to raise humans (neither mra or feminist) to honor the work of non violence. Ghandi and mlk were good men and good males. If I have to live in a world of violence it will be as a warrior both in my ability to take care of myself and family also in compassion.
It could be that sexual assault and abuse do not pose much concern to the Jack Donovans of our day. To them violence against women at a certain level (beyond what you as a woman would consider an inevitable minimum) is just another flavor of the essential violence that makes men. Something men ought to admit they instinctively admire and something women had better just deal with as individuals, without trying to force change in society, in attitudes, or most of all, in men.
Yes, that’s crossed my mind.
But nobody said that, pwlsax. I’m wondering how you can logically justify such a statement. You appear to be all too ready to vilify and mis-characterize both Mr Donovan and me, yet you have not yet made a single statement–beyond your comment about George Raft–explaining your position on the article above or Mr. Donovan’s work.
I don’t yet have a position, if you mean a logical framework that can handle a few whacks. But I do have a smell test, and as yet, Jack’s not passing it. Too much of a whiff of – how to say it – “menagoguery” in intellectual clothing.
I’ll reread him and check back in.
I’m back…
1. I guess we’re getting mixed up with vocabulary a bit. “Constant” might not be the best word to use. Maybe “persistent” works better. Either way, there was always something threatening human societies. Whether it was a daily threat, a seasonal threat, or an incidental threat, humans had to be prepared to handle it. Its not every day that some foreign group attacks our country, but we have processes in place to respond if they do.
2.a. I understand what you’re saying about jumping over things. But think that what Mr. Donovan has done is to focus on elements of masculinity that are common across cultures, and time according to what we have as recorded history and literature. If we have a story from a culture that goes back thousands of years, and describes a man as a hero with qualities A, B, or C, then it is safe to say that qualities A, B, and C were important to that culture. I think its also safe to say that these qualities became important to that culture some time before the writing of the story. Exactly when they became important is not as important as knowing that they did become important, and have continued to be important. Additionally, one can look at the history and literature of a variety of cultures, and discover patterns. For example, almost every culture that we know of had some way of explaining the creation of the universe.
2.b. Those cultures that believe(d) in a third gender still include(d) concepts of both masculinity and femininity. So I don’t see how the concept of a third gender has any impact on discussing masculinity.
4. I don’t think the essence of masculinity lies in the details of a specific culture, but rather in the expectation that men will do what their culture requires of them. In other words, if the men in your Papua group are expected to be the primary parents, and an individual man is a bad or negligent parent, his masculinity could be damaged because he breached a social contract of his culture.
I see a troubling implication: if you live in an oppressive culture, going against oppression is essentially less masculine. Examples might be getting draft resistors out of the US in the 60s, saving Jews in WW2 Europe, or hell, critiquing masculine roles in the blogosphere in 2012.
You’ll pardon my jumping to the conclusion that all things being equal, moral conformity is always more manly than taking a principled stand. It kind of calls the whole issue of courage into question, implying that it’s braver to fight for your gang than your ethics.
The first problem with your statement is that oppression is not a fixed value. I personally don’t see anything oppressive about a culture that expects men to do the lion’s share of child-rearing. Nor do see anything oppressive about a draft, or selective service which is what we have today. I don’t see how you can throw critiquing masculine roles in the blogosphere into the same category as saving Jews in WWII. How are these critics oppressed?
In general, going against the gang can be a masculine act, depending on the what and why. I don’t see anything particularly useful or positive about a father who neglects his children even in our culture, much less in a culture where men are expected to be the primary caregiver.
I don’t see how courage is called into question. How brave an act is depends on the level of risk being undertaken.
At Milo’s request, I have prepared a point-by-point critique of Jack’s thesis.
(Excerpts taken from The Way of Men via this GMP page.)
Warning: long!
To be clear at the outset, I do not wish to qualify manliness at all here – quite the reverse, in fact. I am mostly concerned with the state of manliness Jack argues for, and whether it can rejuvenate civilized men. I am convinced it cannot, for two reasons: first, he has put it too far before civilization; second, he draws facile, even reductive, conclusions along the way.
“There is a difference between being a good man and being good at being a man. Being a good man has to do with ideas about morality, ethics, religion, and behaving productively within a given civilizational structure. [...] Being good at being a man is about being willing and able to fulfill the natural role of men in a survival scenario.”
Survival such as concerns Jack – on the level of a band, a tribe – is a necessary first stage for civilization to exist. Similarly, fire is a necessary first stage for anything metal to exist. But a knife, a refrigerator, a car do not require fire to survive. They do not degenerate if we do not set fire to them; quite the contrary. Melt down your knife or torch your car and they are no use at all.
Whatever natural roles might be, their place is in that first stage. But we no longer live in that first stage. We are not metal: we are the knife, the car. We live in civilization. And decadent and decaying though it may appear to some, we require civilization to survive. If it dies, we die. Civilization, too, has its survival scenarios.
I want to argue no particular moral prescriptions here, but I do insist that some kind of moral baseline is necessary for the survival of any civilization that deserves to. If Jack’s gangs of men can’t band together for the survival of a basic ideal – civilization – and for civilized values like law, justice and mercy, they are worse than worthless – they are dangerous. Even in the movies, men usually know the good guys, and we almost always root for them.
“Is manliness so flexible a concept that a community can re-write the job description however they wish? Not if we accept any model of human nature that acknowledges differences between male and female psychology.”
Here we may have to agree to disagree. I don’t put much stock in the evolutionary theories now in vogue in the blogosphere. I see no compelling reason to reduce psychology – a famously inexact science, if not an art – to one or two or a hundred absolutes calling themselves “human nature.” The best use of the concept “human nature” is itself human – it knows its limits. It is no more than a metaphor for what typical humans might typically do, feel, or think. Built into it are potentially endless exceptions – necessarily so, lest its descriptive power fall to nothing.
I could say much the same of the concept “manliness,” adding that it is probably an even more subjective yardstick than “human nature.” As Jack himself allows, “True objectivity on this subject is a more or less successful pose. We all have a horse in the race.”
I concur with Jack too that men of less physically brutal nature might best help the tribal unit with skills that are intellectual, philosophical, political. But here the door inevitably opens to civilized values, to higher-order thinking that does not necessarily value Us Hard Men above all. Survival of tribe evolves into survival of civilization – unless you eat the brains of the pencil-necked geeks and go on living by the sword alone. In which case, you’ll be gone in a generation.
“If we allow the moralizers of masculinity to define masculinity for us, we either give ourselves over to the ‘one true code of masculinity’ and become completely ethnocentric about it—which would be the historical norm—or we end up with an endless number of ‘masculinities,’ get bogged down in the details of their myriad contradictions and declare, as one famous transgendered sociologist has, ‘that masculinity is not a coherent object about which a generalizing science can be produced.’ ”
We may generalize all we like, of course; we just can’t call it science. And even if ethnocentrism is the historical norm, so what? Is history in this sense so profoundly universal that we must not question it, but only imitate it? Again, I don’t buy most of evolutionary psych, soc, or other theory – especially not when it begins prescribing “essentials.” So we may have nothing at all to agree on here.
“We must look at the phenomenon of masculinity amorally and as dispassionately as we can. We must find what Man knows for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe.”
Reserving moral judgment, and dispassion, are necessary when reasoning to logical principles. But that is not looking at the thing amorally; that would be closing the door on moral implications now and forever. There is little to be prized in the fully natural state of man; it is what he makes of himself.
For my part, a dispassionate look at masculinity, one that reserves moral judgment, insists on what Jack disdainfully calls “masculinities.” Reductive thinking leads to no essential truths, only to potentially endless exceptions. Manliness as a concept has the power we bring to it, but we can bring no more certainty to it than we can to the concept of human nature. It is, finally, only a metaphor for what typical men might typically do, feel, or think.
“There has always been a push and pull between civilized virtues and tactical gang virtues. However, the kind of masculinity acceptable to civilized societies is in many cases related to survival band masculinity. [...] When a civilization fails, gangs of young men are there to scavenge its ruins, mark new perimeters, and restart the world.”
When the day comes for this civilization, Jack and I will very probably be long dead. But I honestly don’t believe that Jack, with civilization’s gifts of literacy and the shotgun, would be in a much better position than I. Our survivors would likely be feral, half-crazed with hunger and fear. They would treat anyone capable of reason or mercy as enemies or weaklings fit only for slaughter.
When survival of the tribe is the sole concern, everything outside the tribe must die. If men – men beyond brutes – are to recognize the power of that particular manly urge, it can be only with the deepest repugnance, and with firm conviction toward a higher resolve. Civilization will never be restarted by those who have turned their backs on it.
Okay just want to add two things. First – I dig what you’re saying here pwlsax, however I’d like to add that actually, even “early bands” or “non-civilized” groups of people would have potentially valued and required intellectual strengths as highly as us modern day, “civilized” societies.
Consider the Chalcolithic in Israel & Palestine (about 6500 years ago or so)…this is after farming but before writing. These people were not what is classically called “civilization.” We’re pretty sure it’s possible that the people in charge were actually religious leaders (read the article Slouching Toward Beersheva if you’re interested in more info). My point is that this is a society that highly valued intellectual wealth and knowledge, even without writing.
We can go back even further…there’s evidence that Neanderthals may have had art. Viewing even early humans as somehow less concerned with knowledge and more concerned with physical survival is just plain wrong.
“Reserving moral judgment, and dispassion, are necessary when reasoning to logical principles. But that is not looking at the thing amorally; that would be closing the door on moral implications now and forever.”
Second thing – this is something cultural relativists often have a difficult time explaining. In order to understand cultural norms, yes we can’t let our own morals and cultures get in the way. However, that doesn’t mean we are unable to judge other cultural norms at all…we just better be sure we understand them first. And so here’s an article I wrote about cultural and moral relativism.
“We can go back even further…there’s evidence that Neanderthals may have had art. Viewing even early humans as somehow less concerned with knowledge and more concerned with physical survival is just plain wrong.”
During my freshman year at Boston Conservatory, the professor of Art & Civilization made a suggestion that “cave-men” drew things on walls for reasons that were not at all decorative. One angle was that they drew things so that other tribes would know that the territory was inhabited, and belonged to someone…like graffiti. That would be useful if you wanted to let strangers know that they were about to trespass, or serve as markers to help others find you. Another angle was that such images were used to teach neophytes about the traditions and processes of the tribe. Pictorial elements are useful instructional tools even nowadays.
“Second thing – this is something cultural relativists often have a difficult time explaining. In order to understand cultural norms, yes we can’t let our own morals and cultures get in the way. However, that doesn’t mean we are unable to judge other cultural norms at all…we just better be sure we understand them first. And so here’s an article I wrote about cultural and moral relativism.”
VERY good article, Heather.
(BTW, Sarkozy did indeed get a burkha ban passed in France. His position was that it represented female oppression.)
When you say, “As has often been discussed, gender is not strictly biological; it is culturally informed,” I agree. Mr. Donovan is saying that culture itself is biologically informed with regards to gender. I would go further and say that many cultural elements are informed by biology. The head scarf is a good example of that.
Mate, “cave-men” is a misnomer…but never mind that. For the past 200,000 years (or so) modern homo sapiens have been around. Those homo sapiens from 200,000 years ago were just as capable of abstract thought as homo sapiens today. It’s an art history approach that suggests that early art was all instructional and literal. There is absolutely no proof that is the case. In fact, if you look at modern-day hunter-gatherer populations, you see that there is plenty of evidence for representational and abstract aspects to art. Even without written language, humans are more than capable of creating symbols..where a painting of a bull might not actually represent a bull. Or a horse…or whatever.
That, right there, is my point. Donovan’s article treats early humans as if they were somehow more primitive…as if their concerns were more survival-based or as if they didn’t have enough time for more intellectual pursuits. That is a very old idea, and a very outdated one. Early humans were potentially just as capable and just as concerned with abstract, intellectual issues as we are today. They all certainly had leisure activities and engaged in relationships and conversations and what-not for the purposes of pleasure, or enjoyment. And so how does all of that relate to gender? Well that all informs gender, and is informed by gender…think of the way that modern leisure activities are divided by gender. For a long time, for example, sports were considered a more masculine pursuit…still are somewhat. Academia was largely a men’s world. Cooking was a woman’s pursuit. Why? All sorts of cultural reasons, of course. And the same could be said for human cultures thousands of years ago.
As for the idea that culture is biologically informed…well yes that is sometimes true. It’s also sometimes environmentally informed (as I pointed out with the headscarf). But then sometimes it’s not. It is customary in Jordan and Egypt to drink tea from a glass cup with no handle. Biologically it makes no sense…the glass gets wicked hot and it’s difficult to hold. Environmentally it makes no sense…it’s not as if they don’t also have glasses/mugs with handles. It’s just the way it’s been traditionally.
I’ll take an example from the modern west and with regards to gender: women can’t walk around topless. Why? It’s not biological…there’s nothing inherently problematic about women with bare chests. It’s not environmental (or at least the gender aspect of it isn’t biological). In colder climates it makes sense for everyone to wear more clothing…but to have different rules for different genders doesn’t make sense. So why? It’s a purely cultural thing. Gender roles and norms aren’t just culture’s reaction to biology…sometimes they’re convoluted and really don’t make a whole lot of logical sense.
“It’s an art history approach that suggests that early art was all instructional and literal. There is absolutely no proof that is the case.”
1. Nobody said “all.”
2. Who can say that the drawings were never instructional, or literal?
3. As I pointed out, a mark on a cave wall, tree, boulder, etc. could simply be there to say, “we’re here,” or, “stay out.” I would qualify that as a form of abstraction.
“Donovan’s article treats early humans as if they were somehow more primitive…as if their concerns were more survival-based or as if they didn’t have enough time for more intellectual pursuits.”
That is incorrect. What Mr. Donovan says is that the more intellectual pursuits are facilitated by the more brutish pursuits. I’m far less likely to spend resources learning to speak Italian, studying music, working with an acting coach, and learning how to apply make-up so I can sing an opera if my time and talents are needed to make sure the next wave of Jihadists don’t get here and wreak havoc on my little piece of paradise. Once the latter is taken care of, the former can flourish more easily
“Gender roles and norms aren’t just culture’s reaction to biology…sometimes they’re convoluted and really don’t make a whole lot of logical sense.”
No they’re not “just culture’s reaction to biology.” But what Mr. Donovan has done is to analyze the many points where they are.
You’re not quite getting the point.
The point is not to save myself, and it is definitely not to save your civilization.
The point is that what is broken here — broken by a combination of globalism, technology/industrialization, quasi-democracy, multiculturalism and feminism — can’t be fixed in a way that makes it worth fixing. There’s a bigger point in the book that the social contract is breaking down all around the world, and that in what some call “hollow” or “failed” states, gangs emerge to operate proto-states, just as they do now in places like Mexico.
I can see how the excerpt as a stand alone might leave some questions open.
Basically, while I doubt I will live long enough to see this occur in full, and we may just adapt to being slaves to the elite (who love the kind of hedonistic, self-centered, interchangeable humans that anti-tribalists and feminists effectively encourage), I believe anarchy and chaos is preferable to the future feminists want, where men ask permission before speaking, and manly honor is gone from the world forever.
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All of the points about this or that being “too reductive” are no more scientific than anything I’ve written. As with so many things, you’re making an aesthetic and ideological objection, and saying something is “too reductive” is merely a way of leaving the door open for a reality that you’d prefer. HN is doing the same thing — basically just saying “well, it could be different and it might not be this way so we should waffle around and equivocate until a nicer, more preferable version of reality emerges.” A lot of feminist ideas about how the world should be aren’t working, for men or women. Our ancestors weren’t actually that dumb, and modernity isn’t that fantastic.
“The point is not to save myself, and it is definitely not to save your civilization.”
It’s our civilization, turn your back on it though you may. You say you would take anarchy and chaos over where you think we’re going. I don’t agree that we’re going there, or that we have to go there unless men embrace that anarchy and that chaos. Far better that we learn to see it coming and take action. So I have no more to say to you, except that you are a worthy adversary in the “waffling” and “equivocation” of open discourse.
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
“I am mostly concerned with the state of manliness Jack argues for, and whether it can rejuvenate civilized men. I am convinced it cannot, for two reasons: first, he has put it too far before civilization; second, he draws facile, even reductive, conclusions along the way.”
Mr. Donovan does indeed begin his description of men before civilization, but he clearly relates how masculinity contributed to the creation of civilization, and how the cornerstones of masculinity have perpetuated it. Even today, I think you would be hard-pressed to say that strength, courage, mastery, and honor are irrelevant traits of manhood. Everybody likes those things in a man.
Your second point is, again, your own personal mischaracterization.
“Similarly, fire is a necessary first stage for anything metal to exist. But a knife, a refrigerator, a car do not require fire to survive. They do not degenerate if we do not set fire to them; quite the contrary. Melt down your knife or torch your car and they are no use at all.”
Internal combustion is a process that continually creates small fires. So without fire, your car would have no independent locomotion. Without fire, we would not be able to make new knives or refrigerators when the old ones wear out or rust away.
Likewise, civilization cannot sustain itself without the qualities of which Mr. Donovan speaks. And because men are best suited to bring those qualities to the fore, civilization needs men.
“I want to argue no particular moral prescriptions here, but I do insist that some kind of moral baseline is necessary for the survival of any civilization that deserves to. If Jack’s gangs of men can’t band together for the survival of a basic ideal – civilization – and for civilized values like law, justice and mercy, they are worse than worthless – they are dangerous.”
What is evident both now, and throughout history is that gangs of men have indeed banded together for the basic ideal of civilization. They continue to do so. Men fight wars in order to preserve civilization. Men arrest criminals in order to preserve civilization. Men master the arts and sciences in order to preserve civilization. Men care about other men and women in order to preserve civilization. Men cannot do as well without civilization as they can do with it. Likewise civilization cannot do as well without men as it can do with them.
The question of whether or not the masculinity Mr. Donovan describes is beneficial to civilization, or detrimental to it is—in my mind—not a moral question, but rather an empirical one.
“I see no compelling reason to reduce psychology – a famously inexact science, if not an art – to one or two or a hundred absolutes calling themselves “human nature.” The best use of the concept “human nature” is itself human – it knows its limits. It is no more than a metaphor for what typical humans might typically do, feel, or think. Built into it are potentially endless exceptions – necessarily so, lest its descriptive power fall to nothing.”
This is an argument that will likely never see an end. A bird builds a nest, and we say that the activity is natural…that the bird’s instincts drive the nest-building. A man starts a business, and we question the environmental impact, and the man’s motivations…as if such an activity is unnatural. The bird improves his situation—his survival, his happiness, and his species–by building a nest. I don’t think that is any less instinctual for a man to start a business that will achieve the same goals.
“We may generalize all we like, of course; we just can’t call it science. And even if ethnocentrism is the historical norm, so what? Is history in this sense so profoundly universal that we must not question it, but only imitate it? Again, I don’t buy most of evolutionary psych, soc, or other theory – especially not when it begins prescribing “essentials.” So we may have nothing at all to agree on here.”
Of course history is profoundly universal. We can’t change it, so it stands as is. We can—and should—question it, learn from it, AND imitate it when it serves our needs.
“Reserving moral judgment, and dispassion, are necessary when reasoning to logical principles. But that is not looking at the thing amorally; that would be closing the door on moral implications now and forever. There is little to be prized in the fully natural state of man; it is what he makes of himself.”
Amorality is useful when talking about what makes a man good at being a man. Morality is useful when talking about what makes a man good…or bad. Mr. Donovan applies morality and amorality appropriately in his analysis.
“When survival of the tribe is the sole concern, everything outside the tribe must die. If men – men beyond brutes – are to recognize the power of that particular manly urge, it can be only with the deepest repugnance, and with firm conviction toward a higher resolve. Civilization will never be restarted by those who have turned their backs on it.”
Mr. Donovan never said that survival is man’s sole concern. He said that the ability to survive—and the qualities that compose that ability—are a high priority.
And no, everything outside the tribe must not die, but it must stay out of my face.
I hope, for the good of all of us, that society does get in the face of those preaching a selfconscious tribalism, nationalism, or any of the professed objectives of the “Alternative Right.” It’s been a very long time since intelligent, articulate people have gotten behind such atavistic, fear-and-rage-worshiping philosophies and tried to sell them as necessary steps to save humanity.
The defenders of a more rational and humane civilization have probably gotten out of practice in debating such toxic ideas – perhaps mistakenly assuming that they no longer exist outside of backward, closed societies that we could drop bombs on if ever they got to making trouble. Leaving aside the dubious humaneness of waging war on principle, though, what if today’s disenchantments here at home led enough angry, fearful people to decide that the problem is too much civilization? Many already claim to want tribe over commonweal, faith over reason, and blood over mercy. Those who do not want these things had better be prepared to fight for them – and the fight will start with ideas and words.
For that reason I hope writers like Jack Donovan are not marginalized to their tribes of believers, but exposed to the light of a full spectrum of beliefs, and compelled to answer to realities they dare not fully contemplate as yet. Everyone will be better for the discourse.
Ah interesting as Justin writes his own summary of what Jack Donovan is saying. I always think that’s a great way to try and understand something – put it into your own words. I wrote a piece where I tried to do that in the other thread with the interview.
The main difference I see is that I concluded a different idea about Jack’s view of the family. No doubt you are in a better position to know it because I’ve only read the two pieces of his writing that have been published here and neither mentions much about the family or fatherhood.
However if it is the case that jack’s view of masculinity in the raw, is one where family is not a big part of the picture I have to see that as a contradiction of the idea that masculinity is defined in terms of society’s role for men, and specifically the role for men that was demanded for the thousands of years of primitive hunter culture as mankind was evolving into modern humans and before the arrival of agriculture and “civilization”. Surely those primitive societies needed women and children protecting and surely it was the role of these tough men to do that? While their understanding of a family man might have been quite different it is clear they must have protected their women and children. The role of a man can’t have been only the lone gunman. For that matter that image is also wrong because the hunters would have needed to co-operate with each other in a team (although on that point I don’t think we disagree about what Jack is saying).
It’s that very problem of women and children that led me, anyway, to put Jack’s ideal manly “gang” in a very early, very primitive stage, before anything we’d call civilization. In that stage, women and children would be pretty much property. Maybe even tribal property (I haven’t studied early humans much).