Unfortunately, that wasn't why Politico did it. They did it for the other reason, which is worse: there is a dearth of scholars of masculinity because you could never get tenure in 'male studies.' There are 'women's studies' and 'gender studies' (which apparently never includes one of the major genders, per se unhyphenated males). There are feminists in history departments and literature departments and art departments who are tenured to write feminine-perspective studies of those things. No university on earth has a "masculine studies" program, partly because men are likely to regard that sort of thing as navel-gazing nonsense, and partly because the whole academic society is hotly against it.
So we are getting a perspective on masculinity from those who are hostile to it. This is familiar. The New York Times did a similar thing with chivalry, asking a lot of people who weren't chivalrous and didn't really have a notion of what the concept meant whether or not it was important. The Times at least found one person who had some actual relationship to the topic to ask, which is better than this project; he was just not ready to talk about it because he hadn't been asked to think much about it before, only to do it. Politico hasn't even got that, which makes the quality of their work dubious.
I wrote a response to the Times series, but I don't think I'll write one for Politico. They're allied questions, since chivalry happens to reliably produce the best sort of men. It's not the only way, though: here is a purely religious alternative approach recommended by my cousin the (female) physician. That sufficiently maps out the issue, which is that good men can do a lot of good, and bad men a lot of harm. It's really important to get this right, but our scholars aren't worried about it because they've decided that rising in their social class is more important -- and that requires talking up the hostile-to-the-alleged-patriarchy feminist perspective, and utterly dismissing alternative views (beginning with questioning whether this country in any sense constitutes a 'patriarchy').
As Texan99 once put it, since she's a woman anything she does must be feminine. Mutatis mutandis, anything I or any man does must be in some sense masculine. There may be special goods that only good fathers can provide, or good husbands, or good men; or it may only be that there are goods they are more likely to provide. It seems like the maleness is a given, though; the real issue is developing the virtues of masculinity, rather than the masculinity itself. Now that's something I've written a lot about already, and a question that continues to matter year after year.
8 comments:
Quite an interesting topic. I've been meaning to ask if you plan to synthesize your chivalry posts into a book. I think it could be quite useful.
On the topic of 'male studies,' I think the typical lefty response to that as well as why no 'white studies' would be that those viewpoints are already over-represented in the scholarship.
I disagree, but that's their point, I think.
Certainly I have heard it asserted— more than argued— that whites and men are over represented and over resourced. The point here is that the evidence, at least for men, now points strongly the other way. Women are a substantial majority of college graduates, and grad school ones, in addition to having tenure and whole departments extant to allow them to study themselves and to advance what they suggest are their common interests. The facts are that both representation and resources are on their side.
Likewise we talk about prison and suicide, but look at how much of the mainstream culture is female-oriented. Just as an exercise, sometimes when you happen into a strip mall consider how many of the stores exist to cater specifically to women versus shops for men. Stably since marketing research became available, women have made more than three quarters of purchase decisions (whoever earns the money). Capitalism has structured our society accordingly.
Well, there's all that history to make up for, since the dead white males of ages past also speak for present and future white males, doncha know, until the other genders and races / ethnicities have all had equal turns.
Really, their arguments should be put into a stage musical. It would play better than these assertions. A lot of academics think that way, though.
Probably need reparations for women, too, for all oppressions of the past and present. Especially since, per the Left's empirically executed behavior, they consider women intrinsically inferior to men and so badly need the special treatment.
Eric Hines
"No university on earth has a "masculine studies" program..." To paraphrase a Monty Python routine about cat licenses and the cat-detector van: Those aren't masculine studies! Those are feminine studies with the word feminine crossed out and the word masculine written over it in crayon!"
I very much recommend the work of Dr. Tania Reynolds of U New Mexico. She was interviewed by Razib on his podcast.
Thanks, AVI. I'll look her up.
On Grim's last sentence in the OP, I think it not only continues to matter, but will matter more and more as the older generations of men die out.
Interesting bio at Psychology Today:
"Tania Reynolds, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico and a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute. Her research investigates how challenges faced by our human ancestors leave traces in psychology today. Specifically, she has examined how and why women compete with their same-sex peers, women experience body dissatisfaction, humans grieve, and people show diminished concern for men’s suffering. Her research investigating the link between female ovulatory hormones and interpersonal anxiety has received funding from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Reynolds is committed to promoting free inquiry and ideological tolerance, and therefore, serves as the moderator of Heterodox Academy’s psychology community."
Oh, yes, it makes sense that she's associated with HxA.
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