Nice post; you hit the nail pretty square with that one.
There is a question here which is worth exploring, I think… given that the trappings of manliness have changed over time, and given that people all have different ideas of what real manliness is, I believe there is now a legitimate, open question about what these core values really are. It’s the sort of thing that you can feel, that you know when you see it, but I have yet to find anyone who can really articulate it well.
I’ve found a useful way of exploring this question: make a short list of what you consider the most important attributes of good men, and then SUBTRACT from that list the attributes that also apply to good women – in short, make a distinction between manliness, and adulthood. Once you get past the violence stuff, the conversation gets pretty interesting. For example, courtesy and kindness for weaker members of society is essential for both ‘real’ women and men; as important an indicator as it is, it does not seem to indicate the essential distinction. Cowardice is always bad, honesty and responsibility are always good. A man must be a good adult, of course, but he most also be more than that. Something else is afoot here.
My current conclusion is that nobody I know really has a handle on it. Men and women alike appreciate manliness, respect it, and can usually recognize it when they see it, but they cannot really define it. I find that fascinating. Was it always that way, I wonder?
Is this part of the point, or part of the problem?
I have an incredibly unlikely touchstone for illustrating this distinction – George Costanza, from Seinfeld. In one episode, George lies about being an oceanographer to impress a girl on the beach, and soon finds himself in the presence of a whale in distress, lying just offshore. The girl, of course, implores him to ‘do something’, and of course he has utterly no idea what to do… eventually, and inexorably, he finally takes of his cap, throws it down into the sand, and wades off into the surf to go save the whale. That image of this fat, helpless little guy, striding into the sea to do god-know-what against incredibly stupid odds, was both hilarious and poignant. But the key here is that this scene totally could not have worked with a female lead – it would have made no sense whatsoever. The underlying values that made this moment so funny and so memorable are distinct to men.
I’ve had very much that same feeling at a few of the times when I’ve felt like I’ve lived up to my own ideals of being a fairly good man. A sense of duty, an awareness that things have stopped being strictly logical, a willingness – indeed, a compulsion – to step into the unknown and just make whatever is wrong, right. Isolation. Knowing that you don’t really know what you’re doing. An almost humorous sense that things are just about to slide outside the norm, maybe way outside, and that you’re going to ride it where ever it goes. All of that fits, somehow, and I’m certain that most women don’t experience it nearly the same way.
Can you articulate what I’m looking for here? It’d make a hell of a post, if you can
It’s one of those things where I don’t know what it is but I know when I see it.
