Example: Some guy blares his radio on your street at midnight for a long time. In the olden days, a real man would have gone out and told him to turn that garbage off. If the offender didn’t comply, a real man would have wrecked the car radio. If that didn’t work, you would wreck the selfish guy blaring the radio. And the neighborhood would have thanked you. The police would have turned a blind eye.
Today, you’d be sued into bankruptcy, thrown in jail, and called a caveman. The guy blaring the radio would be left alone free to stick it to those trying to sleep (and God forbid if he is black because then you would be racist for correcting him). And we call this justice and civility. You’re supposed to cower in your home while the “authorities” do nothing.
This pretty much castrates manhood and the natural inclination of men toward fighting evil.
I could explain why this is the way things are, but I suspect the posters railing against my example will provide more than enough evidence of how weak, twisted, and rotten the entire culture has become.
I suppose it’s good that I don’t subscribe to your “no true Scotsman” theory of manhood
. If the guy didn’t turn his radio down after I asked him to, I’d call the police and let them handle it, seeing as disturbing the peace is illegal and that’s their job. You don’t have to engage in assault to be a “real man,” and the other poster comparing your example to St. Nicholas punching Arius in the face for heresy is erecting a straw man. “Fraternal correction,” in the spirit of love for others,
is Christian charity. Simple assault because somebody’s doing something you don’t like is the opposite. You can show masculinity and tough love without necessarily having to resort to violence.
On the video game issue, I expected blowback from the “I’ve been playing video games for years and I’m perfectly normal” crowd. Heck, I’ve played video games for years and I consider myself to be pretty normal. Some studies have shown that video games cause an increase in aggressiveness, and other studies have shown that they don’t. I’m not looking to belabor that issue here - what fascinated me more was the notion of video games providing that neurochemical high that is so often associated with addiction.
As far as the poster who decided to pan the article after reading “Breivik, who “trained” on Call of Duty,” I think there’s an important distinction to be drawn here. This isn’t like Columbine, where friends and family said “Oh, yeah, those kids were always playing violent video games…must be why they decided to get a bunch of guns and kill people”…he
actually testified that he used that as a method of “training.” Unless his weird political agenda includes a hatred for video games such that he would seek to discredit them, why would you dismiss this out of hand? The guy said he used a video game to train for his psychotic killing spree.
I think there’s something to that.
Folks, I’m not here for a “men are screwing up society and here’s why” argument. I’m not even here for the “video games/TV/facebook/whatever are evil” argument. I came across this article, read it, and was intrigued by the broader-reaching implications of the potential neurochemical effects of today’s media (to include video games and pornography)
on our kids, male and female (the article, after all, discussed young men, not men in their prime who turn to video games and sports because they feel emasculated in the public sphere). austenboston, I’m sorry the article isn’t more to your liking or that the authors aren’t ones you consider reliable. But it’s the article I happened to read, so it is what it is. I should have been more forthcoming about what I found interesting about the article in the OP.
FWIW, I don’t disagree that there has been a great deal of masculinity (and femininity) removed from society under the auspices of “gender equality,” whatever we’re defining that as today. Young men today are left without many positive examples of masculine role models and often have to find solace and mentorship where they may. Young women are sexualized almost right out of the gate. There’s a lot that’s wrong, and I think a lot of the problems begin at home with responsible parenting.
