Great essay. On the matter of "the differences in what men and women find fulfilling" I offer here a couple of snippets from my own recent 'The Androgyny Syndrome' post on a similar theme:
....."It seems to me that the most completely defining experience in life – more defining than the culture one was born into; more than whether born rich or poor – is whether one was born a boy or a girl. By “defining” I don’t mean in the sense that a feminist might mean it; I mean in the sense of the sheer imaginative leap it would take to know what it feels like to be the opposite sex. I have only ever managed the faintest of imaginative glimpses of what it must feel like to be a woman...no matter how hard I may have tried".....
...."Of all the Orwellian Newspeak terms we have allowed to insinuate themselves into the language, ‘heteronormative’ must rank as one of the most poisonous. It is an insidious assault on what is likely the greatest joy in the average person’s life. In politically-correctthink the sexuality of the 95% has been relativised as ‘straight’ or prefixed with ‘cis’..... just one option in a great ‘non-binary’ jamboree bag" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-androgyny-syndrome
Interesting. I never wanted to be a hero. I didn't like the idea of sacrificing my body for society, and I didn't see why women got out of it. I suspect the balance of your argument is correct and most men want this, though.
I feel bad that this got picked up and was railed on by many "leftists" (for lack of a better term). I think what was missed in the piece is that it was just about men. All people want to be proud of who they are and what they do -- men and women. I'm not sure what you've done to bring the ire of the pompous, pedantic left, but it's a shame -- I don't think the vision of where we might focus our attention is that far apart.
Way to tell the world that #2 pencils are thicker than the flaccid manhoods you and all the incels and other fascism-drenched whiny white boys possess - you know, those pathetic thingies you think make you heroic.
Two thoughts in reply. First, I support adding Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class to your list of classic texts about the social formation of character.
Second, yours is a devastating critique of neoclassical economics with its individual preference formation and focus on personal utility expressed through ever-expanding material wealth (don't worry about the distribution if the pie is getting bigger).
"There is no apparent interest, from either Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or anyone else bemoaning the current cultural cachet of masculinity, in cultivating an image of responsible manhood. We have a clique of powerful middle-aged men who want nothing more than to be boys."
My sister was making dinner one night and the cat kept eyeing the string beans. After initially swatting it away, she finally let the cat hunt down the ‘poor soul’ and in full primal mode the furball attacked and ran away with that bean.
My sister is an OCD cleaning machine and the thought of that bean never being seen again in the house - shriveling up in a lonely corner seemed out of character for her at the moment, but she turned and looked at her daughter and said “everyone needs a win sometimes”.
The story has always stayed with me for a number of reasons but after reading this article seems like a good analogy…everyone needs a win sometimes 🤪.
I enjoyed the article, but there is one thing you wrote that I feel conflicted about.
“That gap between how academic elites understand the human is most pronounced when it comes to back-row (low educational attainment) men, of all races, because that is where the difference between what the educated understand as fulfillment (book smart learning) is almost orthogonal to what they understand it to be, which is building physical things with real world consequences. “Mundane” things such as stringing power lines, delivering packages, drilling for oil, harvesting food, which provide a society the necessities to run.”
I don’t think that building physical things or mundane things are limited to low educational attainment men.
I am not a low educational attainment man, I have degrees in Physics, Mathematics and Computer Engineering. That said, I was raised in a poor low educational attainment household - specifically by a single immigrant mother working as a fry cook.
Yet I’m an engineer in the robotics industry, I work on physical products you can touch, feel, that do work and occupy a position in space. My friends from school like me also work on physical products, maybe that’s why we get along - as Electrical and Computer Engineers often do - because we’re drawn to engineering by the allure of the physical world around us and the tools we use to manipulate it. But I am distinctly alone amongst my peers as a person who has experienced adult poverty even, never mind my childhood. My friends in turn come from high educational attainment families, well off ones at that.
Any one of us could have pursued a pure computer science degree, an arguably easier degree in my opinion that doesn’t require the education in physics, electrical engineering and computer programming we received, and worked in a more lucrative career building commercial and enterprise software, but we didn’t. We distinctly chose fields, lesser paid ones at that, where we build tools and machines for mundane problems. Moving people and goods, watering crops, moving things around warehouses, or patrolling coastlines.
I still think you’re onto something here, some people are drawn to building physical things for reasons outside the ivory tower status paradigms, but it’s not just low educational attainment men. There’s something else to it.
Thanks for sharing your valuable perspective on this issue. It's been in the news a lot recently, but most commentators don't have as much experience as you do with different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. I really like your analogy of the limited range of playable characters!
I would appreciate your perspective on a couple questions, which pop into my head whenever I read something about the problems with men:
1. The economic importance of university education and knowledge work is obviously growing, and I've seen a lot of evidence that the average man struggles in this type of system. Can "knowledge worker" be cast as a type of heroic character for men, especially those outside the front row?
2. Do you think it's possible both for men to have a heroic role to fill, and for society to promote equal pay/professional opportunities for women? Or for the typical man, is the role of provider tied to doing better professionally?
I do wonder on 1) -- although right now I'm reading the wonderful book Maniac -- about John Von Neumann, but really about the entire period of men of science who considered themselves heroic. So I do think there are certainly routes for men craving a sense of purpose in that direction, but I also think a lot of people (men and women) are better off not going straight to college, and instead choosing a trade school, and finding a career in mining, or farming, or whatever
on (2), I don't think one precludes the other, but I do believe we have encouraged too many women to think of a professional career as a necessity. Being a mother, and managing a household, is a very deeply meaningful role and sure, it certainly shouldn't be the only thing for women, but I do think it also shouldn't be seen as being somehow a lesser choice
I was travelling down to London Kings Cross last night when we here held up by an incident at Biggleswade. The accepted euphemism for a suicide.
Speaking to a train attendant, she said that there had never been so many suicides as in the last few weeks, last week, 3 alone on just this one mainline. 74% of UK suicides are male.
Later I was reading this article and it seemed that safetyism and wokeness in Britain has warped society by undermining the incentive to be a hero.
The relentless pressure of cancel culture on all to not say or do anything controversial. The endless regulation from government, and steady drip of messages from authority, that there is no need to risk anything, the government will take those decisions for you. This together with the denigration of traditional male roles and constant condemnation of the British, just trying to preserve their culture, as "far right" all heaps additional pressure on the average Joe not to be himself.
So, all this cultural pressure is happening under a background of huge economic pressure in a country that no longer seems to have any prominent masculine role models, let alone heroes.
Dominic Frisby touches a nerve with this satirical song. (for background, Milwall is a football club whose supporters are regularly condemned by the media as white working class hooligans, our equivalent of rednecks. Roy was not celebrated by our government for his heroism.
Your idea that men need to feel useful is spot on. The fact that so many men feel superfluous in areas that deindustrialization hit hardest probably explains many of the social pathologies in those areas on a deeper level.
William James (the father of American psychology) essay "The Moral Equivalent of War", with its call for national service, was inspired by James agreement with your belief that it is important that society create constructive ways for young men to become heroes:
The Hero With A Thousand Faces is a “more cowbell” by Campbell celebration even as calling someone two-faced is an indictment…seems like too little schizo to succeed vs too much schizo to fail … which is all codependent fail, obviously; heroes & hero worshipers, “leaders” & followers.
(Throw a TARP - “troubled asset relief program” - over the whole collateralized lot & give that blanket partied too little to succeed bunch the $700 billion dollar installment/bill, too.)
Extroversions of reality are a botch.
Jeremiah Johnson types (hermits, monks, soloists) take on the heroic & so are heroic.
Concede of rule proving exception rarities who do the solo even whilst surrounded by “audiences” they are heedless to, disregard.
LARP’s on the stage that Shakespeare indicted (whether that was his intention, or not) are appearance-seeking for what they are not.
Vicariousness. Social “proof.” Well, “social” proof.
> That idea of having children — as the thing you do, like this couple, without thinking about because it is clearly towards the good — has been the default mode in most cultures for almost all of our history.
This was just not just some "default mode in most cultures". This is the requirement of Life itself.
Our era hasn't merely found a "new archetype". Our era has lost is will to live and vitality.
Great essay. On the matter of "the differences in what men and women find fulfilling" I offer here a couple of snippets from my own recent 'The Androgyny Syndrome' post on a similar theme:
....."It seems to me that the most completely defining experience in life – more defining than the culture one was born into; more than whether born rich or poor – is whether one was born a boy or a girl. By “defining” I don’t mean in the sense that a feminist might mean it; I mean in the sense of the sheer imaginative leap it would take to know what it feels like to be the opposite sex. I have only ever managed the faintest of imaginative glimpses of what it must feel like to be a woman...no matter how hard I may have tried".....
...."Of all the Orwellian Newspeak terms we have allowed to insinuate themselves into the language, ‘heteronormative’ must rank as one of the most poisonous. It is an insidious assault on what is likely the greatest joy in the average person’s life. In politically-correctthink the sexuality of the 95% has been relativised as ‘straight’ or prefixed with ‘cis’..... just one option in a great ‘non-binary’ jamboree bag" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-androgyny-syndrome
Interesting. I never wanted to be a hero. I didn't like the idea of sacrificing my body for society, and I didn't see why women got out of it. I suspect the balance of your argument is correct and most men want this, though.
I feel bad that this got picked up and was railed on by many "leftists" (for lack of a better term). I think what was missed in the piece is that it was just about men. All people want to be proud of who they are and what they do -- men and women. I'm not sure what you've done to bring the ire of the pompous, pedantic left, but it's a shame -- I don't think the vision of where we might focus our attention is that far apart.
Way to tell the world that #2 pencils are thicker than the flaccid manhoods you and all the incels and other fascism-drenched whiny white boys possess - you know, those pathetic thingies you think make you heroic.
Two thoughts in reply. First, I support adding Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class to your list of classic texts about the social formation of character.
Second, yours is a devastating critique of neoclassical economics with its individual preference formation and focus on personal utility expressed through ever-expanding material wealth (don't worry about the distribution if the pie is getting bigger).
Theory of Moral Sentiments is a great book.
Gift article (no paywall)
"There is no apparent interest, from either Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or anyone else bemoaning the current cultural cachet of masculinity, in cultivating an image of responsible manhood. We have a clique of powerful middle-aged men who want nothing more than to be boys."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/opinion/zuckerberg-masculine-energy-rogan-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.s04.YNqt.4gzTC17omMAs&smid=url-share
My sister was making dinner one night and the cat kept eyeing the string beans. After initially swatting it away, she finally let the cat hunt down the ‘poor soul’ and in full primal mode the furball attacked and ran away with that bean.
My sister is an OCD cleaning machine and the thought of that bean never being seen again in the house - shriveling up in a lonely corner seemed out of character for her at the moment, but she turned and looked at her daughter and said “everyone needs a win sometimes”.
The story has always stayed with me for a number of reasons but after reading this article seems like a good analogy…everyone needs a win sometimes 🤪.
I enjoyed the article, but there is one thing you wrote that I feel conflicted about.
“That gap between how academic elites understand the human is most pronounced when it comes to back-row (low educational attainment) men, of all races, because that is where the difference between what the educated understand as fulfillment (book smart learning) is almost orthogonal to what they understand it to be, which is building physical things with real world consequences. “Mundane” things such as stringing power lines, delivering packages, drilling for oil, harvesting food, which provide a society the necessities to run.”
I don’t think that building physical things or mundane things are limited to low educational attainment men.
I am not a low educational attainment man, I have degrees in Physics, Mathematics and Computer Engineering. That said, I was raised in a poor low educational attainment household - specifically by a single immigrant mother working as a fry cook.
Yet I’m an engineer in the robotics industry, I work on physical products you can touch, feel, that do work and occupy a position in space. My friends from school like me also work on physical products, maybe that’s why we get along - as Electrical and Computer Engineers often do - because we’re drawn to engineering by the allure of the physical world around us and the tools we use to manipulate it. But I am distinctly alone amongst my peers as a person who has experienced adult poverty even, never mind my childhood. My friends in turn come from high educational attainment families, well off ones at that.
Any one of us could have pursued a pure computer science degree, an arguably easier degree in my opinion that doesn’t require the education in physics, electrical engineering and computer programming we received, and worked in a more lucrative career building commercial and enterprise software, but we didn’t. We distinctly chose fields, lesser paid ones at that, where we build tools and machines for mundane problems. Moving people and goods, watering crops, moving things around warehouses, or patrolling coastlines.
I still think you’re onto something here, some people are drawn to building physical things for reasons outside the ivory tower status paradigms, but it’s not just low educational attainment men. There’s something else to it.
I appreciated the added nuance here!
Good insight 😌 Can i translate part of this article into Spanish with links to you and a description of your newsletter?
Yes!
Dear Chris, many thanks.
The article is here:
https://liderar.substack.com/p/heroe-y-otros-personajes-culturales
Thanks for sharing your valuable perspective on this issue. It's been in the news a lot recently, but most commentators don't have as much experience as you do with different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. I really like your analogy of the limited range of playable characters!
I would appreciate your perspective on a couple questions, which pop into my head whenever I read something about the problems with men:
1. The economic importance of university education and knowledge work is obviously growing, and I've seen a lot of evidence that the average man struggles in this type of system. Can "knowledge worker" be cast as a type of heroic character for men, especially those outside the front row?
2. Do you think it's possible both for men to have a heroic role to fill, and for society to promote equal pay/professional opportunities for women? Or for the typical man, is the role of provider tied to doing better professionally?
I do wonder on 1) -- although right now I'm reading the wonderful book Maniac -- about John Von Neumann, but really about the entire period of men of science who considered themselves heroic. So I do think there are certainly routes for men craving a sense of purpose in that direction, but I also think a lot of people (men and women) are better off not going straight to college, and instead choosing a trade school, and finding a career in mining, or farming, or whatever
on (2), I don't think one precludes the other, but I do believe we have encouraged too many women to think of a professional career as a necessity. Being a mother, and managing a household, is a very deeply meaningful role and sure, it certainly shouldn't be the only thing for women, but I do think it also shouldn't be seen as being somehow a lesser choice
I was travelling down to London Kings Cross last night when we here held up by an incident at Biggleswade. The accepted euphemism for a suicide.
Speaking to a train attendant, she said that there had never been so many suicides as in the last few weeks, last week, 3 alone on just this one mainline. 74% of UK suicides are male.
Later I was reading this article and it seemed that safetyism and wokeness in Britain has warped society by undermining the incentive to be a hero.
The relentless pressure of cancel culture on all to not say or do anything controversial. The endless regulation from government, and steady drip of messages from authority, that there is no need to risk anything, the government will take those decisions for you. This together with the denigration of traditional male roles and constant condemnation of the British, just trying to preserve their culture, as "far right" all heaps additional pressure on the average Joe not to be himself.
So, all this cultural pressure is happening under a background of huge economic pressure in a country that no longer seems to have any prominent masculine role models, let alone heroes.
Dominic Frisby touches a nerve with this satirical song. (for background, Milwall is a football club whose supporters are regularly condemned by the media as white working class hooligans, our equivalent of rednecks. Roy was not celebrated by our government for his heroism.
https://www.frisbys.news/p/the-ballad-of-roy-larner
Re: archetypes, don’t forget Carl Jung!
Your idea that men need to feel useful is spot on. The fact that so many men feel superfluous in areas that deindustrialization hit hardest probably explains many of the social pathologies in those areas on a deeper level.
William James (the father of American psychology) essay "The Moral Equivalent of War", with its call for national service, was inspired by James agreement with your belief that it is important that society create constructive ways for young men to become heroes:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_77/October_1910/The_Moral_Equivalent_of_War
The Hero With A Thousand Faces is a “more cowbell” by Campbell celebration even as calling someone two-faced is an indictment…seems like too little schizo to succeed vs too much schizo to fail … which is all codependent fail, obviously; heroes & hero worshipers, “leaders” & followers.
(Throw a TARP - “troubled asset relief program” - over the whole collateralized lot & give that blanket partied too little to succeed bunch the $700 billion dollar installment/bill, too.)
Extroversions of reality are a botch.
Jeremiah Johnson types (hermits, monks, soloists) take on the heroic & so are heroic.
Concede of rule proving exception rarities who do the solo even whilst surrounded by “audiences” they are heedless to, disregard.
LARP’s on the stage that Shakespeare indicted (whether that was his intention, or not) are appearance-seeking for what they are not.
Vicariousness. Social “proof.” Well, “social” proof.
Much viciousness ensues.
I didn’t understand a single sentence!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/00/02/4f/00024f6fd39017cde4fe3cbcd4871bed.jpg
Allusions & tip of the berg references reflect & refract the light of the sparkling sun, my son. Plus, its fun.
This bit of the skit wasn’t key until you showed up with the lock:
Bruce Dickinson: Babies.. before we're done here.. y'all be wearing gold-plated diapers.
Alan: [ confused ] What does that mean?
Great skit, tho:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s
> That idea of having children — as the thing you do, like this couple, without thinking about because it is clearly towards the good — has been the default mode in most cultures for almost all of our history.
This was just not just some "default mode in most cultures". This is the requirement of Life itself.
Our era hasn't merely found a "new archetype". Our era has lost is will to live and vitality.