The Real Man

In many cases this post could be considered an adjunct to the 'Lowering The Bar" post below. It's something that is easy to see but hard to describe. I call it chest puffery. Glenn Greenwald calls it maybe a bit more accurately:


Glen Reynolds ....-- has fretted: "Are we turning into a nation of wimps?" It is the identity of the "we" in that sentence where all the meaning lies. Perhaps if "we" torture enough bound and gagged prisoners and bomb enough countries, "we" can rid ourselves of that worry.

Republicans have long tried to exploit masculinity images and depict Democrats and liberals as effeminate and therefore weak. That is not new. But what is new is how explicit and upfront and unabashed this all is now. And what is most striking about it is that -- literally in almost every case -- the most vocal crusaders for Hard-Core Traditional Masculinity, the Virtues of Machismo, are the ones who so plainly lack those qualities on every level.

There are few things more disorienting than listening to Rush Limbaugh declare himself the icon of machismo and masculinity and mock others as "wimps." And if you look at those who have this obsession -- the Chris Matthews and Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldbergs and Victor Davis Hansons -- what one finds in almost every case is that those who want to convert our political process and especially our national policies into a means of proving one's "traditional masculine virtues" -- the physically courageous warriors unbound by effete conventions -- themselves could not be further removed from those attributes, and have lives which are entirely devoid of such "virtues."

.....In the 1990s, this mentality manifested as the relatively innocuous trend whereby middle-aged men left their wives at home to go dress up in military costumes and march around on the weekend play-acting as "militia" comrades or, relatedly, as not merely advocates of gun rights, but as worshippers of guns themselves. But now -- really, ever since the 9/11 attacks so frightened so many of them and made them feel, to use Rush's formulation, as though they were besieged by "The Emasculating of America" -- this mentality has come to dominate our political culture, as those who so plainly perceive themselves (understandably) to be lacking the traditional masculine virtues degrade and exploit our political system in order to satisfy those cravings.

And Digby/Walcott noted:

The curious thing is that so many of the rightward bloggers and Fox Newswers who are hailing the Brits for their quiet stoicism and pluck don't seem to realize they're issuing an implicit rebuke to themselves and their fellow Americans.

They're saying, in effect, "You've got to admire the Brits for showing calm and quiet perseverance after these explosions--they don't get all hysterical, over dramatic, and over reactive the way we Americans do." They don't seem to realize the example shown by Londoners might be a lesson to them, a model they might follow instead of playing laptop Pattons at full volume every time they feel a rousing post coming on, supporting the president and the entire power structure of the government is their only way of proving to themselves that they are warriors.

They are damaged by their own contradictory past and as a result they cannot see their way through the haze of emotional turmoil to seek out and find real solutions to the problem of terrorism. They lash out with trash talk and threats and constant references to their own resolve because they are afraid. They've always been afraid.

Click the links for some delicious insight.

They have decided they know what a 'real' man is. And by golly they know what a coward is too. That would be you darned "cut and runners". They boldly proclaim 'If you knew just how dangerous it is you would most certainly agree with me'. Directly implying that they have the 'seasoned' view and those that disagree are just naive. It is an overbearing, overpowering need to exhibit their machismo, be it man or woman. It is an essence that goes right to the core of who they are.
What does it mean to be 'a man". Does it necessarily imply a warrior? Who was the greatest man that lived? Most in Christianity would say Jesus. The radical right is always happy to point to Mohammad as a warrior prophet. They love telling you how bad and evil he is while exhibiting the same character flaws themselves.
There is no core to the confused mind they inhabit. There is little in the way of a manly sense of personal responsibility although they utter the words incessantly.
Resilience, integrity, and ingenuity would seem to be far more manly values than those they are expressing. Now if they would just shut up and listen for a minute....