Trends

     I spend very little time with other people – the C.S.O. excepted – and none in groups larger than four persons. (Willingly, that is.) So I tend to be late-to-press with social trends. In the main, that doesn’t trouble me. What use has an isolate for social trends? He’s not terribly likely to adopt them.

     Still, this bit of commentary cheered me:

     Behold the “frat boys” unapologetically saving Old Glory, singing the national anthem, chanting “USA, USA, USA,” and rudely ridiculing the campus freaks who parade around in Hamas colors and barricade themselves in university buildings.
     God forbid! They look like Trump voters.
     This display of irrepressible masculinity erupting in Gen Z is an affront to the grand societal feminization project of the left, which has only itself to blame.
     Frat Boy Summer is this year’s backlash against an epidemic of arrogant, entitled women who have been coddled all their lives and think they’re smarter and more important than they really are.
     It is a manifestation of the growing political divide between men and women that has been evident in opinion polls for some time. There is a 10-point gap on most issues between men and women.
     Young unmarried women, in particular, skew very left, while young men are becoming markedly more conservative.

     I hope Miranda Devine’s observations are accurate. The nation needs a rebirth of masculinity. I had an exchange of views about that on Gab recently, and the consensus was strongly in that direction. However, if such a revival is in progress, the genesis thereof is worth exploring.

     Ponder these possibilities:

• Are young men trending rightward because young women are so far to the left? If so, why?
• Could it be a consequence of the “men going their own way” phenomenon?
• Is it out of revulsion against androgyny and transgenderism?
• Are young men, who are trending away from “higher education” and toward the “trades,” finding vital lessons in manual labor and male comradeship?
• Or are they just watching events and getting smart? It has happened before, you know.

     I could speculate endlessly, and sometimes I do. The important thing is to feed the trend: to keep it going and, if possible, to strengthen it. But to do that, we must learn what has sparked it.

     The time is now. America has ceded too much ground to the enemies of masculinity…who, by no coincidence whatsoever, are also the enemies of America as she was birthed.

     The following has appeared many times, in many places:

     There’s a lot of truth to that. The problem of attaining prosperity and comfort without creating conditions that permit excessive self-indulgence, and thus promote general softness, has yet to be solved. A lot of fiction has touched on the subject. One of the projects on my anvil addresses it.

     The cyclical character of the thing is especially troubling. Breaking free of a natural cycle is exceptionally difficult, and fraught with perils of its own. For as much as I dislike the idea, it’s possible to take masculinity to an oppressive, overbearing excess. It’s observable in the cultures of the Muslim Middle East, for example.

     The American masculine ideal has traditionally been united with what we might call the chivalrous ideal: i.e., men’s rejection of arrogance in favor of the protector-provider’s role. A successful combination of those two models yields the optimum of the American gentleman. Let’s look somewhat more closely at this creature:

• He is physically capable and, when the occasion arises, willing.
• He is protective toward those weaker and less capable than himself.
• He is courteous, but not affected or foppish. He doesn’t boast.
• His occupation does not confine him; he’ll “lend a hand” if one is requested.

     Such men were numerous among us in the years before the World Wars. But they didn’t spring full-grown from the brow of Zeus. Parents had to bear and rear them.

     American parents of sons: You have a field of study to master. Time is short, so get to it.