With the addition of the completing fourth item, honor, Jack Donovan's The Way of Men identifies three of the same foundational virtues of manhood that I decided on several years ago: power, courage and skill. (Strength, courage and mastery, in his phrasing.)
I situated the question for myself in terms of the hunter-gatherer society, where to be a man, a male must father children, protect his tribe and family, and provide food by hunting or fishing. (Sex and violence!) Settling down, farming, building cities, etc. is a pattern that's not more than 12,000 years old. For 90% of our existence as a species, homo sapiens lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and it is likely that it remains a powerful determinant of what human nature, male and female, is.
Donovan posits the gang as the timeless matrix of men, regardless of societal form. In my brief and scattered blog reflections or his much more well-thought through book, we are dealing with what the Jungians call the archetype: the psychic blueprint of the masculine.
The hunter-gatherer world has been superceded by other forms of social organization, so manhood has had to adapt. That's part of why I use the image of a constellation, a recognizable pattern composed of stars of varying intensity, to talk about these adaptations.
And if he is deficient in one or more of these elements, he can compensate for that by excelling in others: eg, a smallish man of unprepossessing physicality can gain standing by extra pluckiness or by a specially developed and valuable skill. Beowolf fathered no sons but as a virtuoso warrior, his masculinity remains classical. In high civilizations, solitary or cenobitic celibates who renounce violence and property can still attain a kind of masculine status through metaphorical fatherhood, courageous ascetic struggle, spiritual skill and a code of religious honor.
Masculinity has a definition but it is also adaptable. It has to be: both the constellation and the gang require various kinds and levels of manhood. Every male is called to become a man, but not the same man.
In any case, the negative backgrounding remains constant: his manhood will be questionable to the extent that he is seen to be weak or afraid or inept or dishonorable. A man is not a boy. Nor is he a woman. Nor God.
And as Donovan insightfully and crucially makes clear: there is a difference between 1. being good at being a man and 2. being a good man. Grace builds on nature, as Aquinas says, but there has to be a nature there to build on in the first place. Archetypes are numinous, not necessarily ethical.
And as he rightly points out, it is men who create civilization and then who find themselves challenged by their own creation precisely as men. Being a good man comes into conflict with being good at being a man. The current power of feminism, which is so damaging to men, could never come about without men having first created the highly civilized conditions for its appearance.
One of the virtues of Donovan's gang model is that it easily holds together both the hierarchical and the affiliative energies of men in an immediately understandable way. All gangs have hierarchies, but these are not the enemies of belonging --as women imagine-- but the very structure of male belonging. As my riff on Anthony Stevens goes: men create affiliation through ranking, women create ranking through affiliation.
The gang model also assumes the role of male initiation, an important dynamic in coming-of-age and one which our society is practically clueless about.
India divides men up into role-status: priests, warriors, merchants and laborers. Jungians see men as kings, warriors, magicians and lovers. (Where are the merchants and laborers?)
My outline of the kinds of stars in the constellation of the masculine:
They all have their negative or shadow forms as well. King/Tyrant. Healer/Charlatan. Etc. As well, each one shifts phase, so to speak, depending on where a male is in his life cycle.
I situated the question for myself in terms of the hunter-gatherer society, where to be a man, a male must father children, protect his tribe and family, and provide food by hunting or fishing. (Sex and violence!) Settling down, farming, building cities, etc. is a pattern that's not more than 12,000 years old. For 90% of our existence as a species, homo sapiens lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and it is likely that it remains a powerful determinant of what human nature, male and female, is.
"Common to many societies, men must 'impregnate women, protect dependents from danger, and provision kith and kin'."Translating these behaviors into virtues, we get strength, courage and skill.
Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity
David D. Gilmore, 1991
Donovan posits the gang as the timeless matrix of men, regardless of societal form. In my brief and scattered blog reflections or his much more well-thought through book, we are dealing with what the Jungians call the archetype: the psychic blueprint of the masculine.
The hunter-gatherer world has been superceded by other forms of social organization, so manhood has had to adapt. That's part of why I use the image of a constellation, a recognizable pattern composed of stars of varying intensity, to talk about these adaptations.
Orion
In the sedentary and non-nomadic societies in which most men have lived for the last several thousand years, how a man achieves and exhibits strength, bravery, competence and honor must change. There is the issue of the lifecycle: masculinity unfolding in boyhood, youth, young and mature manhood, and in old age. All different. Is he a man of high or low status? Does he live in an urban or a rural culture? Does his primary endowment consist in his strength, or in his courage, or his competence or his honor? And if he is deficient in one or more of these elements, he can compensate for that by excelling in others: eg, a smallish man of unprepossessing physicality can gain standing by extra pluckiness or by a specially developed and valuable skill. Beowolf fathered no sons but as a virtuoso warrior, his masculinity remains classical. In high civilizations, solitary or cenobitic celibates who renounce violence and property can still attain a kind of masculine status through metaphorical fatherhood, courageous ascetic struggle, spiritual skill and a code of religious honor.
Masculinity has a definition but it is also adaptable. It has to be: both the constellation and the gang require various kinds and levels of manhood. Every male is called to become a man, but not the same man.
In any case, the negative backgrounding remains constant: his manhood will be questionable to the extent that he is seen to be weak or afraid or inept or dishonorable. A man is not a boy. Nor is he a woman. Nor God.
And as Donovan insightfully and crucially makes clear: there is a difference between 1. being good at being a man and 2. being a good man. Grace builds on nature, as Aquinas says, but there has to be a nature there to build on in the first place. Archetypes are numinous, not necessarily ethical.
And as he rightly points out, it is men who create civilization and then who find themselves challenged by their own creation precisely as men. Being a good man comes into conflict with being good at being a man. The current power of feminism, which is so damaging to men, could never come about without men having first created the highly civilized conditions for its appearance.
One of the virtues of Donovan's gang model is that it easily holds together both the hierarchical and the affiliative energies of men in an immediately understandable way. All gangs have hierarchies, but these are not the enemies of belonging --as women imagine-- but the very structure of male belonging. As my riff on Anthony Stevens goes: men create affiliation through ranking, women create ranking through affiliation.
The gang model also assumes the role of male initiation, an important dynamic in coming-of-age and one which our society is practically clueless about.
India divides men up into role-status: priests, warriors, merchants and laborers. Jungians see men as kings, warriors, magicians and lovers. (Where are the merchants and laborers?)
My outline of the kinds of stars in the constellation of the masculine:
They all have their negative or shadow forms as well. King/Tyrant. Healer/Charlatan. Etc. As well, each one shifts phase, so to speak, depending on where a male is in his life cycle.
Anything important missing?
About bureaucrats: As much as we dislike them, they are a quintessentially masculine creation. One thing you cannot blame on women!
About comedians: Humor may seem secondary, but no one who has spent any time with men in groups would deny the crucial role that is played by laughter.
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