The Patriot Post® · Manliness in Modernity
Senator Josh Hawley recently released his book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. In it, the Missouri Republican discusses the plight of modern men in finding their place in the world. His work is meant to encourage and strengthen men. Hawley puts forth a view of masculinity outlined in the Bible and highlights the virtues of masculine strength, sacrificial love, and courage.
Hawley’s stance has inspired backlash from the woke harpies, whose perspective is expressed in a nutshell by Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post. Capehart wrote an excoriation of Senator Hawley back in August, when his book had yet to be published. According to Capehart, Hawley “is selling a vision of masculinity to White America that has much more to do with prejudice than manliness. It’s an old story — but a successful one, and one that’s poised to catch on. Stopping that from happening will require offering an alternative, with better examples of what being a man really means.”
Capehart describes Hawley’s brand of masculinity as men who are “victims [of] competition by women and non-White men in the labor market.”
The alternative that Capehart suggests? He quotes Jason Kander, a former Missouri legislator who wrote a book that touched on the same topic of masculinity but from a Democrat perspective. Kander wrote, “I knew that being a man meant being dependable, taking care of your people, and going where you’re needed.” But Kander’s perspective on that changed via his struggles with PTSD and suicidal thoughts after returning from Afghanistan. Ultimately, Kander’s favored manly virtue is that of vulnerability.
Hawley’s prescription is very similar: “The warrior loves something dearly and passionately more than himself. He loves his wife and children. He loves his nation. He loves God. And that love makes him strong.” But his ultimate virtues are bravery and sacrificial love.
What all of this has to do with whiteness is never explained by Capehart. Men are men regardless of skin color. Men living in the modern world are struggling, and Capehart dismisses that reality.
In our culture, men are called toxic, dangerous, unreliable, and bullies. Even the American Psychological Association essentially describes masculinity as a disease. Men are the sum of all evil. They commit the majority of the crimes, especially violent crimes. It is also generally men who start wars. The leftist worldview sees masculinity as the problem and seeks to feminize them. The feminization of men only leads to weak men. As political pundit Allie Beth Stuckey put it in a video for PragerU, “In a world of wickedness, weak men are nothing more than enablers of wicked men.”
Weak men are hooked on porn and video games, are self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, and are even working out to fight against their overwhelming anxiety or depression. Bad men are raping, killing, dominating, preying on children, stealing, and gaining as much political power as possible. Bad men are permitted to push forward with their evil in our culture because they have convinced weak men that it’s “compassionate” or “speaking for the oppressed.”
Masculinity isn’t the problem; the problem is the moral shaping and the output of aggression, violence, and ambition. The godly masculinity that Hawley promotes calls for aggression to be turned toward heroism, violence toward being a warrior, and ambition toward good leadership and being a society builder.
Hawley isn’t the only man trying to restore good masculinity to its rightful place. Republican Nicholas Freitas, who serves in the Virginia House of Delegates, has an entire Instagram dedicated to these ideas.
The website Art of Manliness is also full of practical male knowledge from fashion to getting a car unstuck from the mud. It’s men supporting men, and it’s particularly useful since many young men don’t have a father to pass on some of this manly knowledge.
We need men of all stripes, but mostly we need good men who can protect, defend, and build a thriving society. It’s just such a society that Hawley is envisioning for us with his book.