Thomas Pluck has finally come up with a definition he can live with.
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A while back I took the mantra “be the change you want to be in the world” and applied it to manhood. Be the man you want to see next to “man” in the cultural dictionary. But I never thought of actually defining it until I read Alison Nastasi’s article in Flavorwire about 12 Men Who Define Themselves as Masculine (warning, some photos are NSFW).
Not many of the subjects give masculinity a lot of thought; one fellow seems to be trolling, both physically and verbally. For some time, me and my friend Zak Mucha, a LCSW in Chicago, have wrestled with a new definition of manhood to appeal to young men seeking elusive role models. “Protecting the weak” implies value judgments that aren’t always easy to make. Can a strongman be oppressed? Does that make him weak? And so on. It needed to be simpler. I needed to distill my thoughts on masculinity to a single short sentence.
I came up with “applying strength toward justice.”
Because what differentiates man from woman, besides a chromosome? If we strip all cultural conventions and socializations, if we try to imagine Skinner-box grown lab creatures, one is larger and has more upper body strength. The other has lower body strength and a different kind of endurance. I read that farm families who couldn’t afford oxen once had the woman pull the plow and the man steer, using the upper and lower body strength advantages as one. I’m not looking to plow any fields without a roto-tiller, but I like the image that conjures, two parts working as a finely tuned machine, using both sets of advantages equally.
When we distill it down to that, we see men are born with physical power. And with great power comes great responsibility. I’ve always seen that as a duty to protect, but that is an equally feminine trait. Get between a tiger and her cub and see what happens. The difficulty comes with strength leading to a sense of entitlement. As a hulking man-brute, I find myself pondering the shackles of civilization, where intellectual and monetary might have been given a more solid footing than the physical. When someone cuts in line and flips me off because he knows socking him in the face will put me in the hoosegow, for a split second, I think maybe civilization had it wrong. That my strength entitles me to a higher respect. And that is of course, a bunch of grade-A bullshit.
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Flaunting an ever bigger and badder power eventually gets you the lead role in a cautionary tale.
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Respect may be earned, but it is not by physical strength. Courtesy should be universal, but in a society that worships personal freedom, we have to accept that some will abuse that freedom to be discourteous, knowing that the law will protect them when in an earlier time, their behavior would earn a black eye. Might makes right sounds great until you realize there is always someone bigger and badder than you. If you abuse your physical strength to get your way, you are on borrowed time until that bigger person comes along. Flaunting that power eventually gets you the lead role in a cautionary tale.
Justice is of course, a debatable topic, but the Golden Rule remains a fine guide. We may not always feel like the stronger one. In fact, with the rules we accept as citizens, we can often feel weaker and disadvantaged when we certainly are not. It is difficult to sacrifice personal gain for the greater good. That’s why we call it sacrifice. It also sometimes chafes to be lumped with men who behave badly, when we would never do the same. Serving as the good example doesn’t always have immediate benefits, but in the long run it benefits us all.
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Also by Thomas Pluck:
The Little Gold Colt: There Are No Accidental Shootings
Confronting the Devil on Your Shoulder
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: bohman / flickr
So basically using physical strength to abuse someone is unjust?. I couldn’t agree more with that last statement, however what you wrote in answer to your topic of “how do we define modern masculinity” – was nothing short of absolute tripe. Bottling down entitlement to physical strength is a joke in a world where economic, legal, familial and social rights are almost exclusively held by women. You judge a modern society based on archaic rules that haven’t existed for centuries and while there may still be women or men who are abused based on physical strength, to focus solely on… Read more »
Very well said, Mr. Pluck.
Your example of the balance between male and female anatomy might well apply to the definition of modern masculinity as one of the balance of yang and yin, the assertive and the receptive. Sam Keen speaks of the concept of “husbanding”, the agricultural term, is one of the earmarks of a solid male. We use our strength and knowledge to serve and nurture for the common good and the sheer pleasure of creation. Our assertiveness needs to be grounded in a purpose which is to create a zone of security for our receptiveness to emerge. It is naïve to open… Read more »
one of the biggest problems in defining “being a Man” is that it is not one thing, it’s like music, defining Bach and defining Drowning pool are BOTH defining music but you don’t use the same words. we have a very Bipolar view of masculine and feminine when there is very little about it that is that black or white. in the world of Energy work (i’m a master Reiki) i use Masculine energy to describe fast powerful energy that creates immediate change in the world around it, it’s explosive and very difficult to resist, feminine energy is that which… Read more »
Right on, MJO. Love this. “But to be a MAN to me is to be True to yourself and those who rely on you, to be strong in your convictions but compassionate while forming those convictions, it’s to be brave about when you’re wrong , but also about when your right… and it has very little to do with biological sex…” David Deida’s “The Way of the Superior Man” weaves all those ideas into his message to men and women. I also think there are distinctly masculine and feminine ways to care deeply about others, but NOT to care what… Read more »
one problem with your definition (amongst many, and certainly the largest) is that your terms are undefinable and thus are meaningless. justice is a relative concept and is unworkable as a definable precept; i.e. it is an inherently meaningless word and thus fruitless in any capacity. it relies upon the assumption that the reader will be of the same understanding of the word. as absurd as it sounds, the hutu’s found it to be justifiable (social justice) to genocidally massacre the tutu’s based upon a false assumption that they were to be enslaved if they came to power. (rwandan genocide… Read more »
You are correct Joshua, but he’s referring to normal. rational, and civilized people. Splitting hairs when you should be able to comprehend his meaning is asinine.
Yo man, I dig it. I’ve struggled with a definition for a while. While I don’t think your three-word-phrase necessarily encapsulates all of the thing, I do believe it’s a very vital component.
Thanks for the input.
You hit the nail on the head, so to speak, Thomas–but would not it also define females? i.e. mothers apply strength for justice as well. I think, you have actually defined ‘humanity’…and I’m okay with that…