Skip to main content

Does violence define masculinity?

I'd say, yes, actually. That's with a whole bunch of caveats and recourse to definitions. Still, I think that most of what this guy says is both very right and very wrong. 

First, he claims that men = violence is entirely cultural... that it's trained into boys from their youngest years.  Part of that is true, but it's also not true.  We know that higher testosterone is associated with higher aggression in both men and women and men tend to have more testosterone. Violence is actually essentially human. We don't train it into ourselves, we train it OUT.*




This isn't to say, at all, that our cultural fascination with criminal violence is good, or that any of the examples that the NRA commentator lists are wrong.  But he (and others who make similar arguments) fail to understand the source of the fascination.  Our caveperson genes admire strength because strength means meat on the table, protection from sabertoothed tigers, and warmth through the winter months.  Because the mirror side of criminal violence is the capability to provide protective violence.

Our society has been spending a great deal of time and effort trying to convince men that they shouldn't be protective. We're not talking hulking muscles and bloody swords here, we're talking opening doors. Little things that put men in a role of looking out for others. Showing you want that role by offering to carry her books home from school. "How dare you suggest I need looking after?" But looking after others defines masculinity as much as nurturing defines femininity, and while physical strength is attractive, the role doesn't require it.  Dweebs in vacation duds and deck shoes set the women and children in the lifeboats first.

Take that away.  Take away the quiet protection, the provision, the admiration and thanks for carrying my books or opening doors.  Vilify outright the young man who beats up bullies or protects the weak.  Mock the adult man who feels important with his conceal carry pistol because he thinks he might be able to stop something bad happening someday.

Do all that and all that is left to satisfy our primal biological imperatives and signal which man is the most masculine is criminal violence.

*(And thus the true social tragedy of denying the reality of Original Sin... that we are born sinful because we are born human becomes this odd notion that we don't really have to fight our human nature because our human nature is just fine, thankyou.  Unfortunately, reality is that humans didn't "claw our way to the top of the food chain" or become apex predators by weaving daisy chains.)




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tyranny.gov vs Tyranny.com

Compulsion is Compulsion, no matter who does it.  This is Brilliant Theft is Theft, no matter who does it. Freedom of Association has no room in it for *private* action   that takes that away Freedom of Association. If I have a business and have voluntary associations such that I choose to serve some people and to not serve others, that might make me a jerk and it might lose me business, it might make me smart and it might gain me business, but it's got to be my choice.  If I would normally serve the current disliked minority in my shop except for the fact that if I'm SEEN to serve them by the wrong people I'll have a private campaign against me as those people do everything possible to ruin me by preventing me from doing business physically or by attacking my customers or suppliers, then I am NOT free to make those choices. Does it really make a difference to losing my CHOICE to voluntarily associate if there's a law that says I may not serve "those people" o...

How Suzanne Brockman lost me.

I just finished reading the latest paperback from Suzanne Brockmann. _Dark of Night_. I'm disappointed and that's a sad thing because I've absolutely loved her series of romances about SEAL team 16 and the Troubleshooters. Aparently I'm not alone. My complaint isn't the same as most of the others... I'm great with Sophia and Dave. I even am okay with Tracey being people smart. She and Decker did seem to come out of left field. I thought Decker was great even if I thought his overwhelming conflict was pretty lame. What I didn't care for was the politics. I read for escapism, for studly dangerous men acting like men, for sex, and adventure with guns, where our military are the good guys and the SEALs are supermen and military contractor's are heroes, too. (I wonder if Ms. Brockmann realizes that the Troubleshooters ARE Blackwater?) I do not read sexy action adventure to be presented with a *cause*. It's small things but they don...

How "Representation" In Fiction Becomes Toxic

  Some things sound so obviously good that they don't need to be examined.  One of those things is the idea of Representation in fiction; movies, television or books.  Entertainment where some people are conspicuously absent would seem to be an obvious problem, right?  A person doesn't have to be "woke" or any sort of feminist to occasionally watch an old television show and realize (for example) that all the scientists and astronauts in an old movie are men. It's as glaring an anachronism these days as watching a show where everyone is chain smoking cigarettes. Entertainment should reflect the diverse nature of real life and society because, in the end, fiction has to be even more real than real life.  If nothing else, it makes that entertainment more interesting to introduce characters with a variety of backgrounds and challenges. And so we're told that diverse fiction is BETTER fiction. The way that this rather obvious truth is often framed, often discussed...