I have frequently said that one of the biggest problems we have these days is too many boys running around in men's bodies. In your terms, I'd say that's too many men exemplifying the shadow patriarchy.
As a result, I'd said my most important job is to raise my son to be a healthy, positively masculine man, and my daughter to expect that from the men in her life.
As for the loss of chivalry, I feel we've lost honor. A man (compared to a boy in a man's body) keeps his word, admits when he has been wrong, and makes amends for his failings. This has become too rare in our public world.
I totally agree. I hit that hard on the essay How to be a Man and I’m doing the same as you, raising my daughters and my son. Glad to see you’re doing it!
There are distinctly negative masculine behaviors to be noted today but an augment can be made that those are not a feature of the patriarchy but are rather due to an erosion of the patriarchy. This is because a healthy patriarchy teaches boys to become good men. A feminist ideology that dismisses male suffering, stereotypes masculinity as inherently harmful, or treats boys as collectively responsible for historical injustices deserves condemnation. What kind of moral framing allows 100% weight given to female suffering and 0% to male suffering? A boy's life is worth no less than a girl's; a father's difficulties matter no less than those of a mother. We don't need fewer rights for women. We need equal dignity or simply an equal weight for those who suffer.
A not insignificant part of why women feel mistreated when they move as “equals” into male spaces is that they suddenly experience life as a junior male. Female social environments are more subtle, more fluid and rely on an illusion of egalitarianism. Outside the peer group, male groups enforce “learn your place” and “your opinion doesn’t matter until you’ve proven yourself” - and young men often require “breaking in”.
If you swap iron for clay and try to forge it you won’t get the same results.
100% true. It’s a reason why it doesn’t make sense that women should be able to leave work, raise a faimily and come back at the same level of their peers who never left. First, that not fair and second, you’re going to drown.
“Sociopaths create chaos in society, but they’re useful as weapons of war…”
My jaw fell!
If patriarchy is credited with every form of male protection and absolved of every form of male domination, what historical or analytical meaning does the word retain? At that point, are you defending patriarchy... or simply renaming male virtue?
I’m not sure I fully follow this question. The patriarchy is a form of domination, as we explored. However, that domination is actually the supression of the worst elements, not the celebration of it. It checks power and directs energy.
Your last sentence is throwing me, is the patriarchy not best seen as male virtue? It’s certainly become a pejorative, but is the patriarchy everything wrong with men and male viritue is separate from the patriarchy?
That distinction is precisely what I am asking you to make. Male virtue:courage, protection, restraint, responsibility, is not synonymous with patriarchy. Patriarchy is a structure in which authority and power are predominantly vested in men, historically over women, children and lower-status men as well. If virtuous men restraining dangerous men is what you mean, then we may be speaking about social order, law, discipline or responsible masculinity. None of those requires the subordination of women.
That's what I'm trying to reclaim here because that definition is the:
Patriarchy = everything wrong with everything in the world
Matriarchy = everything right with everything in the world
As we explored here, the patriarchy exists, first and foremost, to restrain MEN! It's only incidental that it restrains women. That's what the matriarchy does very effectively. However, when women viewed what men do as the only value proposition and moved into those roles, they're also regulated by the patriarchy. (more on that here: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/rediscovering-the-goddess )
If you only use patriarchy as a pejorative, then you're right; what I'm talking about is healthy masculinity, but then the matriarchy, by definition, can only be negative too. As I pointed out, you can't compare the tyrant to Gaia.
So I'm trying to do twofold: 1. reclaim what the patriarchy is. 2. contextualize it with the matriarchy.
I understand your project more clearly now: you are not using "patriarchy" primarily as a historical or sociological description, but attempting to reclaim it as the healthy ordering and restraint of masculine power. Within that framework, I understand why you associate it with male virtue. My question remains, however, because reclaiming a word does not erase the history it describes. The restraint of women under patriarchal systems was hardly incidental. What you are describing may be a valuable model of healthy masculinity in relation to a corresponding feminine principle. But that is an archetypal or normative model, not necessarily an account of what historical patriarchy was. I think the disagreement lies precisely in the movement between those two meanings.
I have frequently said that one of the biggest problems we have these days is too many boys running around in men's bodies. In your terms, I'd say that's too many men exemplifying the shadow patriarchy.
As a result, I'd said my most important job is to raise my son to be a healthy, positively masculine man, and my daughter to expect that from the men in her life.
As for the loss of chivalry, I feel we've lost honor. A man (compared to a boy in a man's body) keeps his word, admits when he has been wrong, and makes amends for his failings. This has become too rare in our public world.
I totally agree. I hit that hard on the essay How to be a Man and I’m doing the same as you, raising my daughters and my son. Glad to see you’re doing it!
Brilliant.
Thanks.
This post about men only further confirms you’re the man 👊🏻
I appreciate that. It’s a good challenge to write about, that’s for sure.
Regardless of which side you fall on. Total control is total paranoia. Hence there is great wisdom in the ying / yang philosophy.
100%. Total control is also total fragility. It just can’t last.
There are distinctly negative masculine behaviors to be noted today but an augment can be made that those are not a feature of the patriarchy but are rather due to an erosion of the patriarchy. This is because a healthy patriarchy teaches boys to become good men. A feminist ideology that dismisses male suffering, stereotypes masculinity as inherently harmful, or treats boys as collectively responsible for historical injustices deserves condemnation. What kind of moral framing allows 100% weight given to female suffering and 0% to male suffering? A boy's life is worth no less than a girl's; a father's difficulties matter no less than those of a mother. We don't need fewer rights for women. We need equal dignity or simply an equal weight for those who suffer.
Very true. The more the patriarchy is attacked, the more truly negative behaviors I see emerge.
A not insignificant part of why women feel mistreated when they move as “equals” into male spaces is that they suddenly experience life as a junior male. Female social environments are more subtle, more fluid and rely on an illusion of egalitarianism. Outside the peer group, male groups enforce “learn your place” and “your opinion doesn’t matter until you’ve proven yourself” - and young men often require “breaking in”.
If you swap iron for clay and try to forge it you won’t get the same results.
100% true. It’s a reason why it doesn’t make sense that women should be able to leave work, raise a faimily and come back at the same level of their peers who never left. First, that not fair and second, you’re going to drown.
“Sociopaths create chaos in society, but they’re useful as weapons of war…”
My jaw fell!
If patriarchy is credited with every form of male protection and absolved of every form of male domination, what historical or analytical meaning does the word retain? At that point, are you defending patriarchy... or simply renaming male virtue?
I’m not sure I fully follow this question. The patriarchy is a form of domination, as we explored. However, that domination is actually the supression of the worst elements, not the celebration of it. It checks power and directs energy.
Your last sentence is throwing me, is the patriarchy not best seen as male virtue? It’s certainly become a pejorative, but is the patriarchy everything wrong with men and male viritue is separate from the patriarchy?
That distinction is precisely what I am asking you to make. Male virtue:courage, protection, restraint, responsibility, is not synonymous with patriarchy. Patriarchy is a structure in which authority and power are predominantly vested in men, historically over women, children and lower-status men as well. If virtuous men restraining dangerous men is what you mean, then we may be speaking about social order, law, discipline or responsible masculinity. None of those requires the subordination of women.
That's what I'm trying to reclaim here because that definition is the:
Patriarchy = everything wrong with everything in the world
Matriarchy = everything right with everything in the world
As we explored here, the patriarchy exists, first and foremost, to restrain MEN! It's only incidental that it restrains women. That's what the matriarchy does very effectively. However, when women viewed what men do as the only value proposition and moved into those roles, they're also regulated by the patriarchy. (more on that here: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/rediscovering-the-goddess )
If you only use patriarchy as a pejorative, then you're right; what I'm talking about is healthy masculinity, but then the matriarchy, by definition, can only be negative too. As I pointed out, you can't compare the tyrant to Gaia.
So I'm trying to do twofold: 1. reclaim what the patriarchy is. 2. contextualize it with the matriarchy.
I understand your project more clearly now: you are not using "patriarchy" primarily as a historical or sociological description, but attempting to reclaim it as the healthy ordering and restraint of masculine power. Within that framework, I understand why you associate it with male virtue. My question remains, however, because reclaiming a word does not erase the history it describes. The restraint of women under patriarchal systems was hardly incidental. What you are describing may be a valuable model of healthy masculinity in relation to a corresponding feminine principle. But that is an archetypal or normative model, not necessarily an account of what historical patriarchy was. I think the disagreement lies precisely in the movement between those two meanings.