As Amanda Marcotte recognizes in her most recent essay, the Orlando gunman was male
Planned Parenthood joined the fray and also noticed the gunman was male.
Amanda Marcotte writes: “Every time feminists talk about toxic masculinity, there is a chorus of whiny dudes who will immediately assume — or pretend to assume — that feminists are condemning all masculinity, even though the modifier “toxic” inherently suggests that there are forms of masculinity that are not toxic.”
In light of this, consider why the president and Hillary Clinton refuse to say “Radical Islam.”
The president has sought to make a clear distinction between Islam as a religion built on peaceful precepts and the acts of terrorism carried out by extremists who adhere to radical interpretations of the religion.
Allow me to modify this view to flush out the toxicity of the feminist movement:
The president has sought to make a clear distinction between masculinity as a gender built on peaceful precepts and the acts of terrorism carried out by extremists who adhere to radical interpretations of masculinity.
That, right there, should be enough to censure the phrase “toxic masculinity.” The mere presence of the modifier “toxic” inherently implies a separation that would not be tolerated with regard to religion, race or orientation. Would Marcotte call our president a “whiny dude” because he abhors the phrase “Radical Islam?”
Setting aside her feminist sexism, there is one more point about Marcotte’s diatribe: she proposes absolutely nothing. What is the purpose of an analysis that makes sexist comments, yet proposes absolutely no solution? What is the point of Amanda Marcotte?
So, let’s assume that this is a masculine issue. (We would not be far from the mark, for all advances and retreats of society have been by men, while women have historically sat on the sidelines and only embrace feminism when good men have removed life’s risks.)
How can we view these events? Walt Whitman wrote:
FACING west, from California’s shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the
land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western Sea–the circle almost circled;
For, starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia–from the north–from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south–from the flowery peninsulas, and the spice islands;
Long having wander’d since–round the earth having wander’d,
Now I face home again–very pleas’d and joyous;
(But where is what I started for, so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)
Today, we can only stand on California’s shores after we scale the roadblocks put in place by gated communities designed to protect women. One can hardly get to the shore in many cases.
There is no place left to run, today.
There is no place left for men to start anew.
Men have always explored—it is in our nature (if feminists would stop laughing at men who refuse to ask for directions, they would learn something). It is no wonder that San Francisco became a gay male mecca: it was a city overpopulated by men fleeing Midwest conformity, seeking a new life during the Gold Rush.
Today, there are no rugged terrains from which a man can build a new life. Men—gay and straight— did not flock to “The Revenant,” due to its “toxic masculinity”(that would be a feminist interpretation). We liked it because if gave an eye-view of a world that was unchartered: a place to run; a place to release the same energy that created The David and The Ninth.
When the beauty of masculinity’s energetic flow is thwarted, a malignancy occurs. This does imply a crisis in masculinity, but it does demand a compassionate response; certainly not Marcotte’s ingratitude.
Thomas Mann, in his epic novel “The Magic Mountain,” wrote:
A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. He may regard the general, impersonal foundations of his existence as definitely settled and taken for granted, and [may be far] from assuming a critical attitude towards them; yet it is quite conceivable that he may none the less be vaguely conscious of the deficiencies of his epoch and find them prejudicial to his own moral well-being. All sorts of personal aims, hopes, ends, prospects, hover before the eyes of the individual, and out of these he derives the impulse to ambition and achievement.
Now, if the life about him, if his own time seems, however outwardly stimulating, to be at bottom empty of such food for his aspirations; if he privately recognizes it to be hopeless, viewless, helpless, opposing only a hollow silence to all the questions man puts, consciously or unconsciously, yet somehow puts, as to the final, absolute, and abstract meaning in all his efforts and activities; then, in such a case, a certain laming of the personality is bound to occur, the more inevitably the more upright the character in question; a sort of palsy, as it were, which may extend from his spiritual and moral over into his physical and organic part. In an age that affords no satisfying answer to the eternal question of ‘Why?’ ‘To what end?’ a man who is capable of achievement over and above the expected modicum must be equipped with a moral remoteness and single-mindedness which is rare indeed and of heroic mold, or else with an exceptionally robust vitality.
In our contemporary age, those men who manifest a moral remoteness or robust vitality are held in disdain by the media. Men are encouraged to let go of their stoicism and weep openly on Oprah. Men are ridiculed by social justice warriors who suffer emotional diarrhea. Good men will never cry in public—we do it alone with our loved ones and leave the theatrics to feminists who seek an uncivilized common denominator for human behavior.
Thus, it is inevitable that there is now a “certain laming of the personality” which Amanda designates as toxic.
If we wish to stem the tide of violence, we must show as much respect for men, as men—those on the Titanic, those who defended our Constitution, or the two Swedes who got off their bicycles at Stanford—have shown for women. We must recognize the consequences of the unending vilification of masculinity by the Marcotte’s of this world who offer no solution. So allow me.
There are two pistons to masculinity: one that creates and one that destroys—civilization’s machine. Testosterone builds civilizations; and when it falters, it destroys civilizations. If we wish to address events like in Orlando, we must address the nature of these acts in the context of the challenge facing men and boys.
We must now focus on the boys in our schools as we focus on girls. For every state-funded after-school SMET program for girls, we must offer reading classes for boys. Perhaps it is time to value athletic play in the schools, or teach the two genders separately, or delay by one year the entrance of boys into the schools, or train the teachers in how to teach boys or stop the vilification of men and the deconstruction of masculinity, or teach boys that men created civilization and that men are basically good.
There, Amanda: is it so hard to offer suggestions? I gave you five or six right there. Could you not have offered just one solution in your essay? Casting aspersions at masculinity without offering a solution is cowardly and will only make the problem worse and make you look mean. When the focus is on condemning masculinity by surreptitious use of a modifier that even our president would abhor, then that feminism’s focus precludes a solution and invites misandry. Despite all the twitter feeds on toxic masculinity, not one has proposed a solution beyond the dysfunctional toxic feminist re-education camps now confronting young men on campuses.
The juxtaposition of the words “toxic” and “masculinity” “affords no satisfying answer to the eternal question of ‘Why?” It merely satiates the hunger of a toxic feminism that has long since lost its purpose and is now hell-bent on bashing men.
If we do not focus constructive attention on our boys, they may indeed grow into men without an education, without jobs, with no future, and with access to automatic assault rifles. Is that what feminism wants?
- How to ignore sexual assault - July 27, 2016
- Mansplaining - June 15, 2016
- Orlando: Facing west from California’s shores - June 14, 2016
- Joy of masculinity - June 9, 2016
- Take back the light - May 26, 2016