I used to be a lineman. Worked in extremes of weather. Lost a number of workmates along the way. Had an accident my self. Resulted in chronic pain. Decided to go to university. Could only study for twenty minutes and break for forty. Got a number of degrees over a period of eight years. Spent another 30 years helping other working class people like myself. Many were women who thought feminism was a heap of horse dung! Couldn't agree more.
I don't like to be the old goat, again, by finding fault with something beautiful and moving. But there it is. I am an old goat. The implication of this video is that men are worthy of respect because of their physical labor alone, or their physically dangerous labor alone, as if masculinity were synonymous with the physical features of maleness and the psychological patterns that evolved with them.
This video makes a very important point about the unsung heroes who keep our industrial economy going. And yes, most of them are still men. But very few of them are middle-class or even upper-class men, who have until very recently received more prestige than lower-class men but have nonetheless done no less to keep our industrial economy going. This class distinction, by the way, appears in countless movies, commercials and television sit coms. The stereotypical wife and mother is articulate (highly educated), well-dressed, aesthetically inclined, invariably competent and sometimes employed part-time at a white-collar job. The stereotypical husband and father is relatively inarticulate (uneducated or speaks with a Brooklynese or proletarian accent), sloppily dressed (sometimes dirty), invariably incompetent in one way or another and usually employed at a blue-collar job. My point here is definitely not that middle-class women are somehow better than lower-class men but only that popular culture reinforces this ranking and therefore suggests symbolically that women are better than men.
One classic example of these stereotypes was a sit com called Men Behaving Badly. That was quite a while ago. But viewers can watch the same stereotypes circulating on an equally popular show today. Jesse Watters (as the star of his own show but also as one panelist on The Five) presents a cross between stand-up comedy and news analysis. He's no fool. His comments on the news are usually insightful. But his routine comments on masculinity are not. Maybe it's nothing more than a running gag, but Watters keeps insisting that men (that is, real men) speak and act in one way and not in other ways. Men, he keeps saying, do not cross their legs. They do not care about the nutrients in food. They do not use words such as "gorgeous." They do not wave their hands around while talking. Those characteristics, he says, apply only to women. And he points with gleeful contempt at men who disobey the cultural rules, men such as Gavin Newsom (for whom he has nothing but contempt on much more important grounds). Never mind that Watters noticeably takes pride in his own hairdo.
But the problem with this video is not only limitation by social class, at least not only the class system that our own culture currently supports. Some cultures, including a few subcultures within the larger one, promote a very different ideal of manhood. Unlike the Amish, who see the ideal man as an agricultural worker (his urban counterpart being a factory worker), the Hasidim see the ideal man as a Torah scholar. This ideal man—who outranks others in status no matter how poor he is in material terms, cultivates his mind. He has intellectual skill, debating prowess in Talmudic debates over how to interpret the Torah, and therefore the status of someone who leads his community in the search for holiness. What he "provides" for his family and his community, therefore, is not necessarily material resources but spiritual ones. (Wives often work in shops or markets so that their husbands can spend as much time as possible studying in the synagogue.) Although the ideal Jewish woman does supervise holiness within the home, she seldom does so within the synagogue. That's not her primary contribution to the community (which is motherhood), but it is for the ideal Jewish man (along with fatherhood).
I do realize that neither Christian nor secular people, not even secular Jews, are going to emulate the ideal man of traditional Judaism, but I think that it's important for everyone to be aware of additional possibilities for masculine identity. These acknowledge features of maleness that go far beyond the strictly class-based ones that now prevail.
Some interesting points Paul, but there was a section about fathers's teaching their sons, so it was not exclusively about muscle power. Not so easy to squeeze various aspects of masculinity into a short vid.
Yes, of course, no one can say everything in one short video. I watched it again, though, and I see only one slide about fathers "in the quiet dark with calloused, steady hands" teaching their sons about courage (in an industrial setting that must be less and less common these days). Another slide is about men, who contribute in "muscle, mind and soul" (in that order of importance). Okay, then, how about showing a father teaching his son how to solve an algebraic equation? Or mounting his son's diploma on the wall? Or leading a Bible study group?
All in all, Tom, I'd say that this video is a requiem for a way of life that is no longer a reality for most men and never was the only one. You might just as well have glorified cowboys.
I think the strongest response is to agree with the central observation while challenging the conclusion that there is something uniquely “male” about the virtues being celebrated. I’d put it like this:
I think this is a valuable distinction, because we have become remarkably confused about what we actually mean when we talk about masculinity.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating the man who gets up at five in the morning, puts on his boots and does difficult, dangerous or physically demanding work so that his family can live. Those men deserve enormous respect. But the virtue isn’t the muscles, the dirt, the danger or even the fact that the worker is a man. The virtue is responsibility.
And responsibility comes in many forms.
The engineer designing the bridge, the nurse caring for a patient, the teacher educating children, the scientist making a discovery, the father raising his children, the entrepreneur creating jobs and, yes, the construction worker laying the foundations of a building can all be demonstrating exactly the same underlying virtue: they are contributing something beyond themselves.
That’s where I think some modern arguments about masculinity go wrong. They take the traditional characteristics associated with men and turn them into a kind of costume. Don’t cross your legs. Don’t talk about food. Don’t use certain words. Don’t show too much emotion. Don’t behave in ways culturally coded as feminine.
But that’s not masculinity. That’s a list of behavioural restrictions.
A confident man shouldn’t need to prove his masculinity by constantly demonstrating that he isn’t feminine.
And I particularly agree with the point about class. We have created an extraordinary cultural hierarchy in which the blue-collar man is simultaneously portrayed as the essential worker and as the butt of the joke. He builds the house but is portrayed as incapable of running one. He fixes the machinery but somehow becomes the idiot in the sitcom. He does the physically demanding work that society depends upon while popular culture frequently gives greater status to the articulate professional.
That is a contradiction worth confronting.
But I would go one step further. We shouldn’t solve the problem by simply creating another hierarchy in which physical labour is replaced by intellectual labour as the definition of the “real man.”
The Hasidic example is fascinating precisely because it demonstrates that masculinity is culturally constructed in radically different ways. The admired man doesn’t necessarily demonstrate his worth by physical strength or economic productivity. He demonstrates it through learning, discipline, scholarship, religious commitment and service to his community.
We don’t have to adopt that religious model to recognise the underlying lesson: there is more than one way to be a man.
Perhaps the healthier definition is remarkably simple.
A good man is someone who takes responsibility, keeps his word, develops his abilities, protects rather than exploits, contributes rather than merely consumes, and understands that strength is ultimately measured by what you do with it.
Sometimes that strength is physical. Sometimes intellectual. Sometimes emotional. Sometimes moral. Sometimes it is simply having the courage to care for another human being.
And perhaps the greatest mistake we make is telling boys that masculinity is something they have to constantly prove.
Maybe masculinity isn’t about proving you’re a man. Maybe it’s about becoming a good one
Mention the words male or female, masculine or feminine, man or woman and you get so much hatred in the returning comments. Divide and conquer! In whose interest is it to enlarge misogyny and misandry? Anyone who wishes to assert social control of course. Stop playing this sometimes deadly hate filled game. We are aroused to hatred by those who gain by our ill advised anti life affirming stance. I like men, most men are good guys. I also like women, most women are good women. The average person is well intentioned, kind hearted and helpful. All we have done is to lionise extreme examples of men and women and mentally and emotionally dragged them home to live with us and ruin our lives. Men and women. Stop being manipulated
We'll have justice. Feminism kills 200,000 every day, more than all other causes of death combined! The international criminal court says they cannot use the Nuremberg defence of just following lawful orders if a moral option is available. Natural law over throws their corrupt legal positivism.
There'll be a respect day. Complete with millions of men marching. Symbolising the force doctrine where mens credible threat of violence enforced everyone's rights. With ritualistic hanging, drawing, and quartering of family lawyers before burning effegies of them on pyres in every villege square. The constitution and natural law will be handed down on tables and scrolls and read out to highlight “honor thy mother and father”, “do not steal”, “obey husband”, “one flesh” to renew coherent contracts between men, God, women, children, every year.
The peace and reconciliation museums of misandry will be vast mediateks of every single case of injustice or atrocity practiced against men by the misandrist ideologies of Marxism, feminism, and Postmodernity which function as Satanic hate movements targeting men. Every family court hearing that violated a boy or man's rights, every circumcision, every abortion atrocity, every act of DEI unfair discrimination, every act of vindictive shit testing, every reputational attack via covert relational aggression, every sexless marriage, every alimony slavery, every parental alienation, every expulsion of he father by corrupt law, etc.
I used to be a lineman. Worked in extremes of weather. Lost a number of workmates along the way. Had an accident my self. Resulted in chronic pain. Decided to go to university. Could only study for twenty minutes and break for forty. Got a number of degrees over a period of eight years. Spent another 30 years helping other working class people like myself. Many were women who thought feminism was a heap of horse dung! Couldn't agree more.
Amen, brothers.
Absolutely!
Without men building and maintaining EVERYTHING we need to live and thrive, there would be nothing!
I don't like to be the old goat, again, by finding fault with something beautiful and moving. But there it is. I am an old goat. The implication of this video is that men are worthy of respect because of their physical labor alone, or their physically dangerous labor alone, as if masculinity were synonymous with the physical features of maleness and the psychological patterns that evolved with them.
This video makes a very important point about the unsung heroes who keep our industrial economy going. And yes, most of them are still men. But very few of them are middle-class or even upper-class men, who have until very recently received more prestige than lower-class men but have nonetheless done no less to keep our industrial economy going. This class distinction, by the way, appears in countless movies, commercials and television sit coms. The stereotypical wife and mother is articulate (highly educated), well-dressed, aesthetically inclined, invariably competent and sometimes employed part-time at a white-collar job. The stereotypical husband and father is relatively inarticulate (uneducated or speaks with a Brooklynese or proletarian accent), sloppily dressed (sometimes dirty), invariably incompetent in one way or another and usually employed at a blue-collar job. My point here is definitely not that middle-class women are somehow better than lower-class men but only that popular culture reinforces this ranking and therefore suggests symbolically that women are better than men.
One classic example of these stereotypes was a sit com called Men Behaving Badly. That was quite a while ago. But viewers can watch the same stereotypes circulating on an equally popular show today. Jesse Watters (as the star of his own show but also as one panelist on The Five) presents a cross between stand-up comedy and news analysis. He's no fool. His comments on the news are usually insightful. But his routine comments on masculinity are not. Maybe it's nothing more than a running gag, but Watters keeps insisting that men (that is, real men) speak and act in one way and not in other ways. Men, he keeps saying, do not cross their legs. They do not care about the nutrients in food. They do not use words such as "gorgeous." They do not wave their hands around while talking. Those characteristics, he says, apply only to women. And he points with gleeful contempt at men who disobey the cultural rules, men such as Gavin Newsom (for whom he has nothing but contempt on much more important grounds). Never mind that Watters noticeably takes pride in his own hairdo.
But the problem with this video is not only limitation by social class, at least not only the class system that our own culture currently supports. Some cultures, including a few subcultures within the larger one, promote a very different ideal of manhood. Unlike the Amish, who see the ideal man as an agricultural worker (his urban counterpart being a factory worker), the Hasidim see the ideal man as a Torah scholar. This ideal man—who outranks others in status no matter how poor he is in material terms, cultivates his mind. He has intellectual skill, debating prowess in Talmudic debates over how to interpret the Torah, and therefore the status of someone who leads his community in the search for holiness. What he "provides" for his family and his community, therefore, is not necessarily material resources but spiritual ones. (Wives often work in shops or markets so that their husbands can spend as much time as possible studying in the synagogue.) Although the ideal Jewish woman does supervise holiness within the home, she seldom does so within the synagogue. That's not her primary contribution to the community (which is motherhood), but it is for the ideal Jewish man (along with fatherhood).
I do realize that neither Christian nor secular people, not even secular Jews, are going to emulate the ideal man of traditional Judaism, but I think that it's important for everyone to be aware of additional possibilities for masculine identity. These acknowledge features of maleness that go far beyond the strictly class-based ones that now prevail.
Some interesting points Paul, but there was a section about fathers's teaching their sons, so it was not exclusively about muscle power. Not so easy to squeeze various aspects of masculinity into a short vid.
Yes, of course, no one can say everything in one short video. I watched it again, though, and I see only one slide about fathers "in the quiet dark with calloused, steady hands" teaching their sons about courage (in an industrial setting that must be less and less common these days). Another slide is about men, who contribute in "muscle, mind and soul" (in that order of importance). Okay, then, how about showing a father teaching his son how to solve an algebraic equation? Or mounting his son's diploma on the wall? Or leading a Bible study group?
All in all, Tom, I'd say that this video is a requiem for a way of life that is no longer a reality for most men and never was the only one. You might just as well have glorified cowboys.
I think the strongest response is to agree with the central observation while challenging the conclusion that there is something uniquely “male” about the virtues being celebrated. I’d put it like this:
I think this is a valuable distinction, because we have become remarkably confused about what we actually mean when we talk about masculinity.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating the man who gets up at five in the morning, puts on his boots and does difficult, dangerous or physically demanding work so that his family can live. Those men deserve enormous respect. But the virtue isn’t the muscles, the dirt, the danger or even the fact that the worker is a man. The virtue is responsibility.
And responsibility comes in many forms.
The engineer designing the bridge, the nurse caring for a patient, the teacher educating children, the scientist making a discovery, the father raising his children, the entrepreneur creating jobs and, yes, the construction worker laying the foundations of a building can all be demonstrating exactly the same underlying virtue: they are contributing something beyond themselves.
That’s where I think some modern arguments about masculinity go wrong. They take the traditional characteristics associated with men and turn them into a kind of costume. Don’t cross your legs. Don’t talk about food. Don’t use certain words. Don’t show too much emotion. Don’t behave in ways culturally coded as feminine.
But that’s not masculinity. That’s a list of behavioural restrictions.
A confident man shouldn’t need to prove his masculinity by constantly demonstrating that he isn’t feminine.
And I particularly agree with the point about class. We have created an extraordinary cultural hierarchy in which the blue-collar man is simultaneously portrayed as the essential worker and as the butt of the joke. He builds the house but is portrayed as incapable of running one. He fixes the machinery but somehow becomes the idiot in the sitcom. He does the physically demanding work that society depends upon while popular culture frequently gives greater status to the articulate professional.
That is a contradiction worth confronting.
But I would go one step further. We shouldn’t solve the problem by simply creating another hierarchy in which physical labour is replaced by intellectual labour as the definition of the “real man.”
The Hasidic example is fascinating precisely because it demonstrates that masculinity is culturally constructed in radically different ways. The admired man doesn’t necessarily demonstrate his worth by physical strength or economic productivity. He demonstrates it through learning, discipline, scholarship, religious commitment and service to his community.
We don’t have to adopt that religious model to recognise the underlying lesson: there is more than one way to be a man.
Perhaps the healthier definition is remarkably simple.
A good man is someone who takes responsibility, keeps his word, develops his abilities, protects rather than exploits, contributes rather than merely consumes, and understands that strength is ultimately measured by what you do with it.
Sometimes that strength is physical. Sometimes intellectual. Sometimes emotional. Sometimes moral. Sometimes it is simply having the courage to care for another human being.
And perhaps the greatest mistake we make is telling boys that masculinity is something they have to constantly prove.
Maybe masculinity isn’t about proving you’re a man. Maybe it’s about becoming a good one
Thanks, Tom. I hear that welding damages the eyes, even with the protective gear.
Nicely done! I think I'll be playing that on repeat.
Mention the words male or female, masculine or feminine, man or woman and you get so much hatred in the returning comments. Divide and conquer! In whose interest is it to enlarge misogyny and misandry? Anyone who wishes to assert social control of course. Stop playing this sometimes deadly hate filled game. We are aroused to hatred by those who gain by our ill advised anti life affirming stance. I like men, most men are good guys. I also like women, most women are good women. The average person is well intentioned, kind hearted and helpful. All we have done is to lionise extreme examples of men and women and mentally and emotionally dragged them home to live with us and ruin our lives. Men and women. Stop being manipulated
That is very good
Wow! That was reassuring! Bravo!
This AI slop I approve.
We'll have justice. Feminism kills 200,000 every day, more than all other causes of death combined! The international criminal court says they cannot use the Nuremberg defence of just following lawful orders if a moral option is available. Natural law over throws their corrupt legal positivism.
There'll be a respect day. Complete with millions of men marching. Symbolising the force doctrine where mens credible threat of violence enforced everyone's rights. With ritualistic hanging, drawing, and quartering of family lawyers before burning effegies of them on pyres in every villege square. The constitution and natural law will be handed down on tables and scrolls and read out to highlight “honor thy mother and father”, “do not steal”, “obey husband”, “one flesh” to renew coherent contracts between men, God, women, children, every year.
The peace and reconciliation museums of misandry will be vast mediateks of every single case of injustice or atrocity practiced against men by the misandrist ideologies of Marxism, feminism, and Postmodernity which function as Satanic hate movements targeting men. Every family court hearing that violated a boy or man's rights, every circumcision, every abortion atrocity, every act of DEI unfair discrimination, every act of vindictive shit testing, every reputational attack via covert relational aggression, every sexless marriage, every alimony slavery, every parental alienation, every expulsion of he father by corrupt law, etc.