“The male body is becoming outdated tech” – this is the assertion of Mark Manson in his article entitled “What’s the Problem with Masculinity?” In this article Mr. Manson uses Pablo Escobar and his own “pilgrimage” to the former Escobar estate in Columbia to try and tell us that traditional norms of masculinity are now “outdated”.
Just a forewarning to my readers – Mr. Manson really likes to use the F-word a lot. It is even the title of one his books and it appears often in his relationship articles on his blog.
Mr. Manson states this about the origins of masculine behavior:
“Masculinity has historically been all about the three P’s: protector, provider, procreation. The more you protect, the more you provide, the more you fuck, the more of a man you are…
But this version of masculinity evolved for a particularly socially-beneficial reason — to protect us from invaders and protect the town and kill bears and stuff. We needed men to fuck a lot because something like half of your kids didn’t survive into puberty. We needed them to provide because you never knew when the next horrible winter was around the corner.”
Manson then goes on to tell us what has changed. He states that we now live in “a cushy first world where security is more or less guaranteed” where “Violence has largely been automated or outsourced or just plain eliminated” and “Service economies mean that women are just as capable (and perhaps even more capable) to work and earn a living than men are at most professions”. He also says “We have like, women’s rights and equality and stuff. Fact is, we’re much more conscious and moral than we used to be. Therefore, the drawbacks of masculine aggression and dominance present not just economic liabilities, but ethical ones as well”.
Manson goes on in the article to totally denigrate historic masculinity and asks the question “Why are men such dicks? Even the word itself, “dick,” the male sex organ, refers to someone who is being rude and offensive”. He goes on to denigrate men for being “less likely to report any injury suffered at work”, more likely to “work far longer hours, take fewer vacations and sick days” and even for being more likely to die on job. He castigates the average man for seeing himself as nothing more than a “walking paycheck”.
He talks about men having five times the suicide rate of women (which is true). And he further derides men for being “so emotionally incompetent without women, that getting married may statistically be the best thing a man can do to improve his longevity and mental health”.
But then Manson tells us that even when men get married, they are “woefully equipped” to handle it and he tells us why:
“Women initiate more than 70% of divorces and separations with the most common cause cited as “emotional neglect” from their husbands. Those divorces also hit men the hardest: recently divorced men are more likely to suffer depression, alcoholism, mental illness, and suicide than women are.”
Now we will move on to Manson’s summary of the problem and his answer to it.
Manson’s Answer to the Problem of the Obsolescence of Historic Masculinity
Manson summarizes the problem of the obsolescence of traditional masculinity when he writes:
“The problem with the traditional masculine formula – protection, providing, procreating – is that they require men to measure their self-worth via some external, arbitrary metric. They require men to mortgage their emotional health for the sake of their physical safety. But in a cushy first world where security is more or less guaranteed, those interest payments start adding up.
Men don’t just do this to themselves though. They do it to each other. Hell, women do it as well. Educated women will complain that men are superficial and only want to date women who look like a Victoria’s Secret model. Yet ladies, how many of you are running out the door to date a janitor?
We unfairly objectify women in society for their beauty and sex appeal. Similarly, we unfairly objectify men for their professional success and aggression.”
And then Manson gives us his answer to the problem of the obsolescence of traditional masculinity:
“In the 21st century, we need to evolve our definition of masculinity. Yes, we’re still protectors and providers. And you’re damn right we want to keep pro-creating. But there need to be new internal metrics for a man’s worth as well — his honesty, his integrity, his emotional openness and ability to remain strong in the face of vulnerability.”
Let me boil this down for you, Manson is saying that men need to stop being stoic which means they need to complain when they get hurt at work, work less hours and stop seeing their value in their ability to be providers, protectors and procreators. Sure, they can still keep doing these things, but they should not be the basis for a man’s worth.
Instead a man’s worth should be found in his emotional openness and his vulnerability. In other words, men should just learn to deal with the fact we are moving to a service economy and it is taking away their ability to be providers. They should deal with it by having a good cry and then accepting it and moving on.
Men should learn not to be “so emotionally incompetent” that they need marriage to a woman to be mentally healthy and more successful in their jobs. Men should be successful and emotionally secure without being married or for that matter even having a good paying job.
And if men get more in touch with their emotions and their wife’s emotions, they might be able to make the new modern gynocentric version of marriage last. And if they happen to be one of the unlucky men who get divorce papers from their wives, they need to again open their emotions up, be vulnerable have a good cry and move on to the next woman hoping she won’t divorce them either.
A Biblical View of the Obsolescence of Traditional Masculinity
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 19:1 “Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool”. So yes, as Christians we absolutely believe that a man should place great value on his integrity. But Mark Manson presents us with a false dichotomy that we as men can place our value in our integrity (as well as emotional openness and vulnerability) or we can place our value in being providers, protector and procreators.
Biblically speaking this is not an either-or proposition – it is both.
The Bible tells us that a man should absolutely find a great part of his value in being a procreator when it states:
“3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”
Psalm 127:3-5 (KJV)
The Bible also tells us that men should find their value in being providers and protectors for their wives and children:
“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
Ephesians 5:29 (KJV)
“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”
Proverbs 13:22 (KJV)
“Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”
Psalm 144:1 (KJV)
It is God who created in man the burning desire to take a wife in marriage, have children and then lead, provide for and protect them. It is God who put in man the strong desire to be a hard worker and to make his mark on the world outside his home.
It is absolutely true that our modern world is trying very hard to make God’s design of masculinity obsolete in every way they can. As Bible believing Christians though we need to realize this is part of a much larger insidious plan. The secular humanists have been using scientific and technological advancements as well as cultural changes to try and make God obsolete.
The attack on what we call “traditional masculinity” which really is just God’s design of masculinity is an attack on God himself. The Scriptures tell us in I Corinthians 11:7 “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man”. Man, the male human being, was created by God to image him and thereby bring God glory. The Scriptures tell us that woman was created by God for man (I Corinthians 11:9) to bring glory to man.
Men are not “emotionally incompetent” for strongly desiring and needing marriage nor for placing their value in being providers and protectors. Men cannot fulfill the purpose for which God designed them without being husbands, fathers, providers and protectors. So, it makes perfect sense that some men would feel suicidal and without a sense of purpose if they cannot do these things.
Our modern world hates this truth. And that is why we are seeing a cultural war over the gender roles God created in the form of transgenderism and homosexuality being forced into cultural acceptance. Secular humanists are literally trying to annihilate the distinction between men and women as God created it.
How Christians Can Fight Secularist Attempts to Make Traditional Masculinity Obsolete
The world tells us as Bible believing Christians that we just need to conform to how things are now and get with the program. “Stop living in the past and living by the words of a 3000-year-old book” we are often told. But if we do this and conform to our world’s eradication of masculinity and femininity as God designed it then we are betraying our Christian faith.
The Scriptures tell us in Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world” and in James 4:4 that “whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”.
The answer then for us as Christians is to fight back by refusing to conform to this wicked agenda which seeks to make God’s design of masculinity (and femininity for that matter) obsolete.
But how do we fight this cultural war? The simple answer is that we need to reverse the cultural decisions that have brought us to the point we now find ourselves at where we are actually debating if traditional masculinity should be tossed to the dustbin of history.
The two major items that have brought traditional masculinity to brink of obsolescence are feminism and automation.
Work supplies man with a great amount of his purpose. And a service economy does not provide the vast majority of men with an income that can support a family. Only a production economy can supply men with jobs that can support a family. Some say people just need to be educated more for the future. That is false for two reasons.
First it assumes all men have the intelligence and aptitude for high tech jobs and learning. That is untrue. Second as things become more and more automated, we will need even less and less techs because the machines will fix themselves.
Even the atheist Steven Hawking saw AI as threat to humanity.
So, Christians need to raise their voices about the threat of continued automation and AI advances. We need to pass laws that outlaw further AI advances and also outlaw robotic automation in all manufacturing. We also need to outlaw driverless cars as this will put truck drivers and man others out of work.
But we must also work to undo feminism. We must take away the rights America has granted to women since the mid-1800s. This means taking away women’s right to own property and limiting the ability of women to work and earn money. It means placing restrictions on how many women may enter higher education. In other words, it means making women completely dependent on men for their economic provision.
And it absolutely means taking away women’s right to vote.
It also means removing no fault divorce laws and restricting the allowance for divorce to only the gravest of circumstances such as physical abuse, adultery or abandonment.
When we once again secure the institution of marriage and protect the ability of all men to be able to work and earn a living and we restrict women from being independent from men then true masculinity can be restored to its rightful honored position it once held.
But then the question comes – how do we do all the things I just mentioned? They seem impossible in our current culture and political climate. The answer is it starts with Christian fathers and mothers sitting their young people down and showing them what God’s Word says about the different reasons he designed men and women. It means teaching our sons to seek out only Christian women who want to be keepers of their homes and depend on their husbands for their provision as the church depends on Christ for its provision.
It means raising our daughters to be women whose goal in life is not education and career, but instead bringing glory to God by bringing glory to their future husbands. It means raising daughters who want to fully dedicate their lives to serving their husbands, their children and their homes.
Here is another way to look at this. Godly young men need to shut out feminist women. Even if a feminist woman wants to stay at home, she will still bring great sorrow to her future husband with her daily contentions. That means staying away from women who want college and university educations and or careers.
Godly Christian women need to work with their fathers to find a man who fully accepts his God given duty to lead them, provide for them and protect them. A man who is not fully prepared to provide for a wife has no business even approaching a woman’s father to court her.
And yes, we need to get rid of dating and return to courtship. We need to guard against premarital sex by re-instituting the cultural norm of a woman never being alone with a man not her blood relative or her husband.
This also means Christians need to return to having larger families. Conservative Christians (both Protestant and Catholic) already have more children than liberal Christian or secular families do. And this is actually what lead to a conservative resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s. While the liberals were out partying and living it up having no kids or just one or two kids the conservatives were having 3 or 4 or 5 kids. So, if we build on this and increase this, we can literally outbreed liberals and win at the voting box with sheer numbers.
But just having more children is not enough. We must teach our children the Word of God and prepare them for all the false philosophies they will hear in the secular world. We need to point out to them all the problems with a system built on individualism and how it is destructive to the family and therefore society as a whole.
Biblical Gender Roles 
I agree with everything except banning technology. Banning farm equipment could bring us to full employment tomorrow, but none of us would be better off overall. Cars and trucks put a lot of horse stables and drivers out of business but opened a lot of opportunities for new jobs at all levels. Ban the stove, washing machine and dishwasher and women surely couldn’t spend their days at the office. Technology is a double edged sword, but rather than become luddites, you listed all the other ways that would restore the authority of men. Remember, even today with current levels of technology, men still have most of the responsibility, they have just lost the authority to go along with it.
Wood Chipper,
I am not talking about banning all technology or tools, equipment or even all automation.
I am very specifically talking about banning further advancements in AI, which many experts believe could lead to catastrophic consequences and also banning further advancements in robotics being used in manufacturing unless it is proven that a human could not do a particular task.
If you look up discussions on AI and Robotics people are having this discussion about how far is too far. You may think there is no limit, but I think there must be limits on everything. We already limit certain areas today – like human cloning being banned or even genetic engineering of humans as that Chinese doctor did.
And yes you are right that technology is a double edged sword, and at some point what seems to have made your life better may actually kill you.
Have you ever seen the Terminator movies? If there was ever the case for what AI can do that is it.
First bgr, this is a great article with a lot of truth for those of you who can accept it.
While I understand your thoughts about changing society back to its pre-feminist days, I do not believe this will ever happen. Human’s think they know better than God, and the world will continue in this direction until it is uprooted and thrown in the fire when Jesus returns. I fully expect He will return before the world rejects feminism.
That is what I think on a “world” level. On a personal and family level, your comments about Godly parents sitting their children down and teaching them what is right is absolutely what needs to happen. It honors God, does what is right on a family level, and will hopefully produce strong faith filled followers of Jesus.
One issue is that I have known people who I am certain have real faith that have what I call the “just in case” plan. They send their daughters off to college and prepare them for a professional life away from the home “just in case” God doesn’t provide them a husband. They have real faith in Jesus, but they are following the world’s modern ideas. The people who genuinely prepare their daughters to be wives are even outsiders to what this country would call evangelical Christians these days.
I agree about automation, it is a bad idea to eliminate jobs that give everyone opportunity. Those without opportunity become a negative needing resources instead of a positive producing resources (and taxes). Remember though, the enemy and his actors would rather keep someone dependent and lost on welfare than free and producing.
I think AI is mostly bunk. I realize it is a deep conversation and can get to the level of, “if it passes as real” then “it is real”, but I reject that idea. AI is the new buzzword and you see it everywhere, but its power is not in a computer running a program, but what you can convince people it is, or can do. That threat and deception is where the power is. Computers run programs made with instructions. You can program a computer to program itself, but then it will program itself with a program to do what you told itself to program itself with a program to do. It is not life. They’ve been at this game for many decades with very little real results despite massive improvements in power and capability. So, while Alexa may “pass” as a human being, it is simply a very elaborate program. Human’s desire so strongly to think they can create life like God, but this is another place they will fail.
Where is the accompanying piece on are women becoming obsolete? With advances in sex robots, (even some the ability to nag), besides procreation what purpose do women have in the future?
The whole frame is silly and offensive to the God of creation.
Jonadab,
Hilarious. Apparently you and millions of other men did not get the memo that no part of a woman’s value can be based on her beauty or ability and willingness to please a man sexually. To his credit, Manson tried to be little balanced in his article when he said women should not find any part of a man’s value in his ability to earn a living. Instead we should only find value in a or man or woman based on their “emotional openness” and “vulnerability”. I need to find a bucket to vomit in.
And this is why Western Civilization is on its way to collapse. A society based on emotions and not the reality of human nature and desires(some of which I would argue are hardcoded by God) is doomed to fail.
Anm1,
Your Statement:
I don’t discount the very real possibility of what you said and that the world may never turn back to its pre-feminist days before Christ returns. But remember what the Apostle Peter tells us:
Christ could come back in the next 10 years or wait for 1000 years. So I agree if he came back in the next 10 years there would be little chance of any movement away from feminism by that time. But 1000 years is a much longer period of time. I sincerely do not believe Western civilization will exist in its present form in 1000 years. The United States and most if not all European countries will have long collapsed by that point.
So going with my “1000 year theory”, if the Lord chooses to wait that long I see the Western civilization collapsing under the weight of its own stupidity much in the way the Soviet Union collapsed. You cannot have societies that long survive which ignore the realities of human nature, which incentivize mass migration, fail to protect their borders or culture, and most importantly dis incentivize marriage in the way that has been done and still have these nations survive.
So as I have said before we as Christians need to prepare our children and grandchildren for two things. First and foremost the Lord’s coming, but also the very real possibility that Christ may not come back for another 1000 years and if that is the case they must prepare for the collapse of the United States in whatever form that takes. Practically speaking that means teaching our sons how to use fire arms and also stocking up and always being prepared. And this may sound too far thinking, but we also need to show them how to pick a side(what criteria they should use) when the nation descends into an actual civil war or the government collapses.
There is reason to be concerned about the advancement of AI and privacy concerns with bringing tools into our homes that we barely understand. Similar to cloning, it’s good to have ethical concerns about advanced technology that could leave us all with chips implanted in us or worse.
What I disagree with is your case against automation and doing jobs a human could do, taking specific exception to banning driverless cars. Computers killed a lot of manual labor and handwritten tasks, but it also opened a new world of jobs that never existed. Your blog has hurt printing presses and postal workers that would have benefitted if this was a newsletter, but it has now instantly reached more people in further places.
It’s a good thing to produce more with less manpower. The real issue is that men produce great wealth, but women are free to take it away through child support, alimony, and through the force of taxes that pay for welfare. I guarantee that women would all be on their best behavior to even low wage working men, if they knew they couldn’t just steal their resources through government force.
The role of women will also be extinct in a few years, with the rise of sex robots and artificial uterus. Nowadays you can buy food online, pay a maid, drink milk for free instead of buying the cow.
I do not foresee a good future for humanity. The best way to end of mankind is to get the man and woman away. Surely this is all a satan plan.
And honestly, deep down I’m glad this is all happening.
Christ must come back soon.
And all that humanity will suffer can not be prevented.
–
Have you changed your mind about men marrying feminists with the intention of changing her?
Great post. I see society trying to take genders out completely. This way they can fully take away God.
I’m wondering what the “new modern gynocentric centric version of marriage” means. 🙂 A little typo you might want to correct.
OKRickety – Thanks I have made that change.
I agree with the no fault divorce laws, but getting rid of all of those rights that women have won over the years, including her right to vote!? As a catholic conservative, I saw those points as abhorrent! All of those rights that women of all races and backgrounds, including Christian women, who sacrificed so much, including their lives to get all of those rights and live the American dream along with their husbands and fathers, and you are saying that we need to take all of those away in order to achieve gods intended design of gender roles? One of the things that makes this country great is the opportunity for people to be free. People of all backgrounds and both sexes are given the opportunity to pursue their freedom. How will other countries, some of which are full of oppressed women, react when they hear that we have taken women’s rights away? That would tarnish our image beyond belief, and would be a complete slap in the face for those women who have sacrificed everything to achieve their freedom. There has to be another way. Traditional marriages can still work in this country. We just need to teach future women the beauty of God’s word and how they could live according to his example.
Garrett,
Yes many women have risked or given their lives for expanded rights for women to make women have equal rights with men. But as I am sure you are aware many women have risked their lives and fought for abortion rights as well which I am sure as a Catholic you are adamantly opposed to. Also many homosexuals in the US and around the world have risked their lives for gay rights. Just because someone risks their lives for something does not make the cause moral and just. The 911 terrorists believed deeply in their cause and gave their lives for it, yet it was an immoral cause.
In the same way when it comes to women’s suffrage the fact that women risked their lives for it or other rights like owning property and divorce rights does not automatically mean they were risking their lives for a moral cause. The measure by which we must just our morality must always be the Word of God.
You asked “you are saying that we need to take all of those away in order to achieve God’s intended design of gender roles?” and the answer to your question is a resounding YES. The Bible tells us in I Corinthians 11:3 “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God”. And this is not simply referring to marriage as is explained in verse 7 when it states ” For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man”. This is why it says in verse 10 that “For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels”. Women must always be under the authority of men in all areas of life, whether it be in the home, the church or in society at large. This is why women should never be able to vote, because it gives them authority over men which they should never have.
You asked “How will other countries, some of which are full of oppressed women, react when they hear that we have taken women’s rights away? That would tarnish our image beyond belief”. The following Scriptures answer your concern:
We have tarnished our image as a nation for well over a century since the first women’s rights conference was held in the mid 19th century, we have tarnished our image in the eyes of God and he is the one we should care about pleasing the most.
You say “There has to be another way. Traditional marriages can still work in this country. We just need to teach future women the beauty of God’s word and how they could live according to his example”.
What if we applied your logic about marriage to murder or other crimes. What if we made all these other crimes legal and we just needed to teach people not to murder or do all those other crimes. Have you seen the “Purge” movies? Basically the idea of the Purge movies is that for one night a year all crime is legal even murder. You know what the people do when you make everything legal? Many of them will take advantage of it and do those things.
In the same way if you make it legal for women to be unsubmissive to men they will be unsubmissive to men. That is the reality of the sin nature.
This is one of the things that I really appreciate about this blog. There are logical, Biblical arguments and it’s not opposed to taking women’s “rights” away.
We live in a society that is predominantly driven by a mix of individualist ideals with progressive/egalitarian/communist ideals. Both these ideologies mostly reject authority of any kind. Everything in culture shows authority as abusive and we have no reference of a “good king” archetype. Anything related to absolutism and hierarchies in culture and the home are against our sensibilities while even communist ideals get sympathy.
Obviously, I’ve got a strong libertarian / individualist mindset, but I’m recognizing that this pushes to remove authority from everyone, while progressivism runs with that and hands more authority to women and others that haven’t earned it.
“So, Christians need to raise their voices about the threat of continued automation and AI advances. We need to pass laws that outlaw further AI advances and also outlaw robotic automation in all manufacturing.” I have a comment on that: If America outlaws these things, other countries will not, and they will gain economic and military advantage, putting us in danger of invasion. I think the main thing we need to do instead is to encourage one-income households, but exceptions should be made for single mothers or widowed mothers to support their children.
One way, outside of politics, to help reduce the supply of labor and therefore increase wages to a living wage–to facilitate one-income households in the future–could for families to share housing if necessary in order to get by on one income per family.
Parents, especially when they have big houses, should maybe consider letting their kid marry relatively young, stay in the house, and the spouse can move into the house. If we don’t want people to have premarital sex, we should do everything reasonably possible to facilitate the alternative. I think most newlyweds would do the best they can to branch out into their own residence as soon as feasible. The new economic factors mentioned in this article can delay life developments for intelligent, well-meaning, willing-to-work people who are doing their best to make it. It sometimes takes more time than you’d think for one person to work up to a household income.
Mr. BGR; I know this post is kinda old but talking about large families…what is your instance on birth control? Are you okay with contraceptive pills/condoms and another methods to avoid a pregnancy for some specific reason (for example if the wife has health problems and getting pregnant would be a danger to her and the baby)? Also, do you believe that the catholic dogma about sex is correct; that its main purpose is for procreation and therefore if it’s not for that reason then the couple should not have sex at all? Thank you, I hope you can answer this concerns of mine from your perspective.
cdv,
I am not against a married couple using birth control for health or a variety of other reasons. Birth control is actually a little bit like masturbation (which I also have no problem with). Masturbation can be good for helping to relieve sexual pressure especially for single people. But it can also be a useful tool in marriage for giving the one’s spouse a break during health issues or times apart or traveling for work. In the same way as long as birth control is not used to skirt God’s first command for us to be fruitful and multiply I see no issue with it.
And I completely reject the Catholic dogma that the main purpose for sex is procreation. If that were the case then God would not have designed all extra nerve endings in the sexual organs nor would he have designed the human orgasm. In addition to that God has designed a chemical cocktail of hormones to be released during sex that bonds a man and woman together on an emotional level and this is needed throughout the entirety of the marriage, not just the early years of reproduction.
Thank you for your response!
I remember a catholic priest saying that sex is the act of a man penetrating and ejaculating inside his wife and that’s all; because of sex being only for reproduction then doing oral sex/mutual masturbation was useless when it comes to procreating, that if a man tried to make his wife have an orgasm after he ejaculated then he sinned because the sexual act was over and the woman was looking for pleasure in a unnatural way and that a woman’s orgasm didn’t matter at all because it played no part on conceiving a child so her desire for pleasure was just lust. This left me very disturbed and it made me feel that sex is some mechanical thing instead of a pleasurable act between spouses…honestly, I can’t believe that such thing is what the catholic church has been preaching for the most part of history, making men & women feel ashamed of their own sexuality and controlling their sex lives!
It does seem strange to consider pleasure from sex to be a sin. When it comes to birth control, I’m more accepting to the arguments that sterile sex is not the best sex. Everyone knows this with condoms, but even with female birth control, our bodies know we are failing to accomplish what we were designed to create through sex. Even if the sex is pleasurable, every period that a woman has is a subconscious reminder that they are just masturbating together in a sterile way.