http://palaceofreason.com/Essays/manly_virtues.html


We hear a lot of loose talk about "environmental damage" and "endangered
species" from the left-loonies and their pet interest groups, but when you
look for what's actually disappeared from the American environment, two
things rear up and poke you in the eye:

Civility,

Men.

Get into your time machine, go back fifty years, and walk the streets of any
of the great cities of this continent. They were safe. They were almost
perfectly clean. People didn't jostle one another, hurl obscene imprecations
at one another, deface the sides of buildings with moronic scrawling, or
pollute the air with pain-threshold levels of their preferred "music." Men
treated women with courtesy, respect, and a certain protective affection.
Even the poor, of which, though they were less numerous than they are today,
there was no shortage, were clean, self-reliant, self-respecting, and
courteous. The police would sort out those who couldn't meet the prevailing
standards and would unceremoniously tell them to "keep moving," in which
effort they were overwhelmingly reinforced by the non-uniformed public. If
you wanted to surround yourself with degeneracy, you had to find the local
Skid Row, the only place where such things were tolerated. It wasn't a big
place, and the folks you found there permitted themselves no pride about
their condition. No one indulged in nonsense notions about the "dignity" of
the homeless, of welfare dependents, of drug addicts, of gang members, or
any of today's mascot-groups for the coercive-compassion camp. As a result,
government, which fattens on public perceptions of danger and disorder, was
relatively small and unintrusive.

Were there some blemishes on this pretty picture? Yes, of course there were.
There were still legal barriers against women entering the workforce in many
states. There were still entailments on women's right to hold real property
in a few places in the south and southwest. A residuum of racism encumbered
the black population's efforts to raise its condition -- though in fairness
it must be remembered that a popular movement largely composed of white
people was already afoot, and just fourteen years later it swept all
race-based legal restrictions into the dustbin of history. Government had
swollen due to the unconstitutional New Deal and America's involvement in
two foreign wars, and those who liked the result were working to swell it
still further.

Still, in 1950, America was a place of nearly overpowering civility. In
2000...?

How did we lose it?

Ask a hundred opinion-mongers and you'll get a hundred different answers.
Here's mine: We made it unacceptable to be a man, at least in public.

The word "man" in the above is, for a change, not to be interpreted
generically. I don't mean "a member of the human species," or even "a
masculine human being." I mean a man, the sort that fathers used to try to
raise their sons to be, even if Dad wasn't quite one himself, because he
knew it was his duty, and because it was expected of him. In 1950, the
chattering classes and their hangers-on were already at work trying to make
the manly virtues into vices, and to promote their opposites in their place.

What is a man, and what does a youth need to learn to become one?

Two things qualify a masculine homo sapiens as a man:

Knowledge of right and wrong, and the willingness to fight for the right;

Knowledge of his own obligations, and the willingness to meet them.

A man must learn "where the line is": the line that separates behavior that
must be tolerated from behavior that must not be. He must be willing --
personally willing -- to fight in defense of the former and against the
latter, though it might expose him to risk and cost him injury or death. He
must be ready to swallow his distaste and protect the rights even of persons
he finds repulsive, if they have harmed no other human being.

A man must learn proportionality and restraint. Biology has optimized the
male body for purposive aggression, sudden acceleration and focused
violence. These are not things to be deployed in their 200-proof strength
against trivial or unworthy targets. A man doesn't kill the bounder who
steals his parking space, his business idea, or his wife. Even a punch in
the nose is excessive for infractions like these.

A man must learn never to shirk a freely contracted obligation. If you've
said you'll do it, you do it. No excuses. Conversely, if you have failed to
meet an obligation, you must admit to it and try to do better next time.

A man must learn not to whine about disappointments, reversals, or the ways
of women. Especially about the ways of women. They're not men -- thank
God -- and we can't fairly hold them to manly standards.

A man must learn reverence in the presence of the numinous. The fact that
each of us is a part of an infinitely greater whole manifests itself in
innumerable ways. Learning to let it in, to cherish it, and to use it to
buttress oneself in times of darkness is critical to attaining the endurance
the world expects from a man.

Last and most important, a man must transmit the manly virtues to his male
children.

But no one has said it better than the poet the political Left hates worst
in all the world:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it,
And what is more --
You'll be a man, my son.

(Rudyard Kipling)



"katysails" wrote in message
...
Honesty and sincerity would be the number one factor. Following that, no
gamesmanship.
A bath once in a while (like every day) wouldn't hurt. Giving up the
"one-up" stuff is a definite plus. Looking like Johnny Depp in "Pirates of
the Caribbean" wouldn't hurt (he's SOOOO pretty....)


--
katysails
s/v Chanteuse
Kirie Elite 32
http://katysails.tripod.com

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax
and get used to the idea." - Robert A. Heinlein