There is a Yiddish word I am sure many here have heard of before. The word is “mensch”. Mensch, in its original meaning, is not a word to be used flippantly. Calling a man a mensch is a serious compliment, to be used sparingly, it’s a word of praise that extols the virtues of a man, a man who is good, who does good, who takes responsibility, who is physically, emotionally and mentally strong, who is loyal, who is kind, who uses his masculinity to love, protect, build, and nurture. As we know, not every male is a good man, just like not every female is a good woman. There is nothing worse than a weak man. If you want an example of a man who is the antithesis of a mensch, look no further than Harry Mountbatten-Windsor, who is revealing to the world just how weak, disloyal, treacherous, irresponsible, dissolute and narcissistic he is. For me personally, there is nothing more attractive in the world than a strong and masculine man comfortable in his own skin.
Sadly, in 2023, men of all ages are routinely demonised, disparaged, ridiculed, and smeared. Masculinity is denigrated. The appalling term “toxic masculinity” is used recklessly to the point now where it’s routine, nobody blinks an eyelid on hearing it, and it’s commonly used against white men of European background. Male masculinity is trivialised and mocked in advertisements, in media, in entertainment, in education, in academia, and in writing. Men are made fun of, and all men are presumed to be sexual predators. Men are now deemed guilty until proven innocent. This constant denigration and disparagement of masculinity starts early in life, so that we now live in a culture where boys are growing into adolescents and young men without purpose, they’re lost, bewildered, angry, sidelined, marginalised, and mocked. Too many boys are growing up without fathers and positive male role models. The consequences of this are catastrophic, we are witnessing teenage boys, and young and older men committing suicide in ever increasing numbers, we are seeing staggeringly high numbers of homeless men (young and old), boys’ educational outcomes are lagging significantly behind girls, and over the last decade we have seen the rise of the “incel”, young males who are socially awkward and are unable to communicate, preferring a relationship with a computer rather than a human being. What is an “incel”? The Oxford Dictionary describes “incels” as….
a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile towards women and men who are sexually active.
I believe the online “incel” phenomenon is a version of an age-old male phenomenon, the gang. Marginalised, disaffected, socially alienated males have always been attracted to gangs, it is in those gangs that they find other males like themselves. The gang gives boys and young men purpose, direction, meaning, it provides them with a community of other males, and they depend on and feed off this community. It should surprise no one that in 2023 there are online gangs of young men who roam the internet, who play violent online games, and who watch pornography. These socially awkward and alienated males, many of whom have grown up without fathers and in highly feminised environments, have testosterone which has never been channelled into positive masculinity, and so an online community has mushroomed of males angry with the world and particularly with women. Many of these socially awkward and alienated males are highly susceptible to grifters such as Andrew Tate and Jack Murphy, to name just two. Tate, currently under arrest in Romania, has allegedly pimped young girls, US based Murphy pimped his wife. These grifters created businesses to extract money from lonely, impressionable and awkward young males, and once they received the money, they would provide pseudo masculinity recipes to young men which contained fraudulent elixirs to pursue their “positive masculinity”, except the recipes were made up of snake oil masculinity promoting misogyny, pornography and the emotional and sexual subjugation and abuse of women. That is not real masculinity, it is a perversion and debasement of masculinity. Snake oil masculinity is costly, fraudulent and misogynistic, real masculinity is free and character building.
If the West is to be saved, and I believe it can be, then the current demonisation of men and masculinity must stop NOW. And this initiative needs to come from women. Why? Because I believe that women have created this problem of disaffected, disillusioned and socially alienated males. I do not want to live in a culture dominated by females and where boys and men are smeared and ridiculed. I want a society where the masculine and feminine are complimentary to each other. I want men to be men, where the words “be a man” are mandatory and celebrated, where boys and men are provided with male role models who encourage them to be good, to do good, to take responsibility, to be physically, emotionally and mentally strong, to be loyal, to be kind, to use their masculinity, not to subjugate or manipulate women sexually, physically and emotionally, but to love, protect, build, and nurture. In other words, we need to cultivate the mensch in men.
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