“The male body is becoming outdated tech” – this is the assertion of Mark Manson in his article entitled “What’s the Problem with Masculinity?”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“pilgrimage” to the former Escobar estate in Columbia to try and tell us that traditional norms of masculinity are now “outdated”.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.