Oh poor David French — he’s complaining “The Right is all wrong about masculinity”.
There is a certain irony in discussions of masculinity. The group that is most convinced of a crisis of masculinity, the American right, is also busy emasculating itself before our eyes. It correctly perceives that young men are facing an identity crisis, yet it is modeling precisely the wrong response.
The release of the Missouri senator Josh Hawley’s new book on manhood is the latest peg for a national conversation about men, but the necessity of such a conversation has been apparent for some time. If there’s anything that’s well established in American social science, it’s that men are falling behind women in higher education, suffer disproportionately from drug overdoses and are far more likely to commit suicide.
Indeed, the very definition of “masculinity” is up for grabs. In 2019, the American Psychological Association published guidelines that took direct aim at what it called “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression” — declaring it to be “on the whole, harmful.”
I strongly disagreed. Putting aside “dominance,” a concept with precious few virtuous uses, the other aspects of traditional masculinity the A.P.A. cited each have important roles to play. Competitiveness, aggression and stoicism surely have their abuses, but they also can be indispensable in the right contexts. Thus, part of the challenge isn’t so much rejecting those characteristics as it is channeling and shaping them for virtuous purposes.
“...part of the challenge isn’t so much rejecting those characteristics as it is channeling and shaping them for virtuous purposes.” Right — virtue, from the people who brought us pillars of virtue like Donald Trump.
What French is struggling with is trying to avoid realizing that the Right is talking about masculinity in an authoritarian context. What does the Right see as a masculine person, AKA a strong leader? Sara Robinson cites John Dean from “Conservatives Without Conscience”.
Leaders and Followers
Authoritarians come in two flavors: leaders and followers. The two tiers are driven by very different motivations; and understanding these differences is the first key to understanding how authoritarian social structures work.
Leaders form just a small fraction of the group. Social scientists refer to this group as having a high "social dominance orientation (SDO)" -- a set of traits that can be readily identified with psychological testing. "These are people who seize every opportunity to lead, and who enjoy having power over others," says Dean -- and they have absolutely no qualms about objectifying people and breaking rules to advance their own ambitions. High-SDO personalities tend to emerge very early in life (which suggests at least some genetic predisposition): you probably remember a few from your own sandbox days, and almost certainly have known a few who've made your adult life a living hell as well.
High-SDO people are characterized by four core traits: they are dominating, opposed to equality, committed to expanding their own personal power, and amoral. These are usually accompanied by other unsavory traits, many of which render them patently unsuitable for leadership roles in a democracy:
Typically men
Intimidating and bullying
Faintly hedonistic
Vengeful
Pitiless
Exploitative
Manipulative
Dishonest
Cheat to win
Highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic)
Mean-spirited
Militant
Nationalistic
Tells others what they want to hear
Takes advantage of "suckers"
Specializes in creating false images to sell self
May or may not be religious
Usually politically and economically conservative/Republican
Dean notes: "Although these collations of characteristics…are not attractive portraits, the are nonetheless traits that authoritarians themselves acknowledge." In other words, these guys know what they are, and are often quite unabashedly proud of it.
What has French’s knickers in a twist about what the Right is doing, and why they are being so aggressive about it?
In 2016, for example, the single most important intellectual work of the new right was an essay by Michael Anton entitled “The Flight 93 Election.” It began like this: “2016 is the Flight 93 election: Charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You — or the leader of your party — may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees. Except one: If you don’t try, death is certain.”
That’s right: The argument was that electing Hillary Clinton, a thoroughly establishment Democrat, would mean the end of America. It’s an argument that people never stopped making. In 2020, I debated the Christian author Eric Metaxas about whether Christians should support Donald Trump against Joe Biden. What did he argue? That Joe Biden could “genuinely destroy America forever.”
emphasis added
How clueless is French? Look who he drags in:
Last month, my friend Jonah Goldberg wrote an important piece cataloging the sheer pettiness of the young online right. “Everywhere I look these days,” he wrote, “I see young conservatives believing they should behave like jerks.” As Jonah notes, there are those who now believe it shows “courage and strength to be coarse or bigoted.”
Right. This is the same Jonah Goldberg who gave us “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change”. From the blurb at Amazon:
Fierce, funny, and controversial, Jonah Goldberg's #1 New York Times bestseller traces fascism back to its surprising roots--in liberalism.
“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.
French and Goldberg are surprised the young online Right are so uncivil? They have no clue how it could possibly have happened? Mirabile dictu! Ever hear about projection guys?
If you want to get an idea of just how threatened the Right is by women, just consider all of the laws they are frantically passing in Red states to take away the freedom of women to control their own bodies. They want them barefoot and pregnant again — and French’s plea for stoicism is a demand they suffer in silence.
If you want a look at how far they are taking their freakout, checkout disgraced former Army general and Trump advisor Michael Flynn — who if reports are to be believed, is setting up a dating service and networking group for people who have protected their ‘purity’ by never having gotten the Covid vaccines.
Online Community of Health-Conscious, COVID-19 Unvaccinated People
4thePURE is an online community where health-conscious individuals who have rejected the COVID-19 vaccine can connect and find everything they need — friendships, dating, curated news, service providers, doctors, blood donors, fertility options, jobs, shopping, events, etc. — with the goal growing a community of the free.
...My name is General Michael Flynn, I am a Founding Member and the President of 4thePURE Advisory Board. I would like to invite you to become a fellow Founding Member of 4thePURE.
A founding member will receive a lifetime membership, 25% off 4thePURE products and events, along with the right of participation in retreats, conferences, and seminars with some of the most informed experts in the world.
In addition to the many perks and VIP treatment, you will be a founder in one of the biggest and most important movements in the world today. Limited Spots Available!
There is some speculation that this is a fake website, but it’s hard to be sure given how far down the rabbit hole the right has gone, and how much this looks like another Right Wing con game. Flynn sounds like an updated General Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove, who launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union because...
Ripper tells Mandrake that he believes the Soviets have been fluoridating American water supplies to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of Americans. Mandrake realizes Ripper has become insane.
That’s right — Ripper has become obsessed over his “Purity Of Essence”.
Whether or not 4thePURE is an actual real thing or just a parody is the problem: it’s too damn plausible to just dismiss.
What passes for conservatism these days isn’t ideology — more like pathology. Really Mr. French. How about we have a discussion about human decency instead — or is that a bridge too far for the Right?