the need for men
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“Oh, you need me.”
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On the horrible Bill Maher show he recently had on a horrible guest who espoused the idea of democrats demonizing men and the “male crisis.” First. I find it rich that some right wing nutjob is harping on the fragility of men. Whatever happened to self-reliance and “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps?” Second. A pernicious aspect of this whole male crisis narrative is how they strawman the argument with “toxic masculinity.” What I mean by that is the Right falsely suggests that all men, and masculinity, is broad stroked as ‘toxic’ by “the Left.’ Its nuts, absurd, and creates a false narrative. As a man myself let me be clear, you can be masculine without being toxic. Toxic simply means being a dick. You can be masculine without being a dick. To be clear, as a man myself, all men will be dicks on occasion, but to be toxic you have to be a dick consistently and almost all the time. Selectively being a dick is just being a guy.
Which leads me to what exactly is this “male crisis” we are speaking of.
A lot of men are losing their positions as breadwinners or just losing out on having dominant positions in society. That doesn’t necessarily have to do with men, it just may be a reflection of progress. So before I get to men, specifically, let’s talk progress from a macro perspective. In a complex society where there is progress there will always be some who benefit more than others. Those who may have been marginalized in the past will find opportunities in the wave of progress to get ahead and those who have benefited in the past will no longer have as easy an access to the benefits. Its not exactly a zero-sum game, but it may feel like it. Its actually just asymmetry which is a characteristic of complexity. Society, and economies, are rarely characterized by one similar progress characteristic. There will always be at least one component, or one industry, which will be underperforming versus others. That’s how it works. In this particular case, some men may be underperforming in this wave of progress, or may just feel like they are underperforming, and this creates a multitude of issues – which is being labeled a “crisis” (an absurdity in and of itself).
Which leads me to the male issue.
I cannot remember who the social philosopher was, but someone suggested the core issue is “need.” In order to find meaning, all humans, including men, need to feel two things: they are contributing and their contributions are needed in some way. Simplistically, we humans need to feel needed in some form or fashion. The “needed” creates a sense of connection to other people and the community and the larger society. In its most feminine framing this is ‘nurturing,’ but in the male crisis that is a toxic word (because it is mainly associated with women for some reason). We should note social anthropologist Margaret Mead once said “every known human society has rested on the learned nurturing behavior of men. This behavior being learned is rather fragile and can disappear quickly in circumstances that no longer teach it effectively.” Being needed and nurturing have a symbiotic relationship and it is silly to not discuss the fact men are nurturing beings and at the core of masculinity is giving more than you get, i.e., contribution. And maybe within all that is an actual, real, issue. Maybe we are not signaling strongly enough to young men how much they are needed for a healthy family, healthy community, healthy society and that their contributions matter.
While I may, personally, think its slightly absurd that we need to do this, or coddle male egos this way, it may be extremely fair that we need to vocalize, just a bit more and a bit more loudly, how much men are needed for a healthy economy and healthy community and healthy society. Maybe we need to be just a bit more specific that it’s not just that we need people, but we need men.
Ponder.
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