I have been planning for some time, in my writing regimen, to address an issue that has increasingly become obvious to me: the 'softening' of America across the board. That is, the process whereby our nation, experiencing a cross-current in the leftist aim of subverting the brave American experiment in democracy by gradually 'remaking' our nation into a socialist society, is rapidly becoming a nation of what the right quaintly terms 'snowflakes'...or people who are so sensitively fragile that the mere thought of a fancied offense against their adopted, assumptive pseudo-realities sends them into paroxysms of righteous PC indignation.
One of the prime dynamic forces behind all this process, whether any of you have taken active note of it or not, is the encroachment of the accelerating ‘feminisation’ effect in America. That is, the rising ascendence and influence of young, left-of-center women in American affairs.
[Interestingly, not a few historians of the ‘Old West’ and American Frontier Era have pointed to this same ‘feminising’ effect as a diluting dynamic of traditional American individualism and self-sufficiency that ‘helped’ tame the Wild West…not altogether a good thing, without its own deleterious repercussions.]
Today, the women’s movement of the late 50s and 60s has, in subsequent decades, turned into a tsunami-like ground swell of social upheaval that now leads the charge to convert America into a sort of precursor semi-socialististic society not unlike the totally virulent socialist dystopia that George Orwell so famously prognosticated in his numerous written works.
If you still have the tolerance to watch the primary broadcast media network news (ABC, CBS, NBC, not even to mention CNN and other even more left-biased news media such as PBS) without throwing blunt objects at the TV screen or shouting epithets at the anchors, you can hardly fail to note that the vast majority (actually an overwhelming preponderance) of broadcast media reporters, anchors and correspondents are now young women. Not only are they young women, they are most often emotionally, visibly agitated, not-quite histrionic-but close, shrill and consumed with a self-righteous non-verbal (bodily) affect that states that what they are conveying to a viewing public is the absolute TRUTH, Amen.
The few male media anchors, reporters and correspondents appearing on these broadcasts also tend, in my observation, to be increasingly gay, rather than patterned in the same mold that such highly respected major male media news figures were, back in the 50s and 60s.
[This effect is largely the result of the equally disturbing assault on biologically fixed gender identity principle that LGBTQ+ proponents so fiercely resist…a policy that corporate media HR enthusiastically embraces as part of its ‘diversity & inclusion’ dogma.]
All of this is a reflection, of course, of the new ‘norm’ of highlighting and showcasing women, gays and especially ‘people of color’ (I love that term…it’s sooo symptomatic of this strongly proactive, overt ‘diversity and inclusion’ ethos that has completely taken over both corporate and media concerns in America) across a broad spectrum of social, corporate and public venues. Overall, the effect achieved is an aggregate adjunct of the feminization phenomenon, and that to me is a major concern…or should be to all of us as a large part of American society continues to turn into a cohort of wimpy, acquiescent, compliant and ‘squishy’ individuals.
Any alert, observant, involved, reasonably intelligent member of society who still dares to think and analyse rationally, rather than act-out emotionally, would have to be permanently in either lala-land or ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’ to not take at least some notice of the above changes referenced here, in my opinion.
At this point, let me inject the thought that some years ago I was of the opinion that having women more involved in America’s government and major political institutions would be a positive thing: that women having a greater role in our political and social colloquy would bring a most welcome and mediating influence to help keep us out of needless and wasteful wars (Vietnam and the entire range of our recent Southwest Asian wars being but convenient examples). I was, of course, thinking along the lines of Germany’s masterful Angela Merkel, whose inherent brilliance as a statesperson up until very recently has helped lead Germany through several recent decades of international economic and political difficulty like few others have been able to (or Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EEU's European Commission and also German, a mother of seven, and a Doctor of Medicine, who is equally astute in her leadership roles)! But Merkel is no Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Merkel is a respected biochemist by way of professional street-creds and has a PhD; in other words, she’ s a very, very bright, well-educated and astute individual. Compare that to Ocasio-Cortez’s painfully young and inexperienced ‘Squad’ cohorts…or any of the other almost all-young women who have recently risen to such public prominence in the ‘woke’ movement of America today. There’s simply no contest.
Women, as a gender, tend to be constitutionally prone to venting raw emotionalism (or at least hormonally more susceptible to yielding to emotions over reason than most men), an expression of predominant left-brain as opposed to right-brain cerebral function. Media corporations are well aware of this, just as they are aware that decades of the progressive women’s movement have spurred a new generation of young women to ‘speak out’ (one of the most abused cliches used in media today, by the way) against injustices they fancy are being committed by men afflicted with what they characterise as ‘toxic masculinity’. And while a certain amount of well-moderated emotionalism is a necessary ingredient of any social system, too much of it can have absolutely devastating impacts on all aspects of our society. What is needed, of course, is a balance of emotionalism and intelligent rationalizing in any colloquy of national importance and we do NOT have that!
Very recently, concurrent with the increased prominence of the BLM movement and the explosion of ‘civil rights’ issues into our full-blown ‘critical race theory’ and ‘woke’ paradigm, this leftist coalition of progressive neo-socialists of all persuasions has focused on and identified white males as the principal source of all that they consider ‘evil’, culpable and/or causative agents of all our social ills that are to them bad (or toxic). This charge against what is characterised as ‘toxic masculinity’ has led to a great number of effects in America that have had, do presently have, and shall continue to have, incredibly adverse impacts on our national and international affairs. It is this process of tearing down what the leftist progressives define as toxic malehood, that poses a far greater threat to America than most people realise.
And as America continues, as a direct result, to transmogrify into a spineless, morally weakened and physically ineffectual nation of wussy snowflakes, I have not doubt whatsoever that nations that haven’t yet succumbed to this onslaught against male hegemony (such as ‘Vlad the Impaler’ Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s Chinese autocracy, to name the two most formidable present threats to American democracy) are sitting back and watching a formerly strong America rapidly sink into an abyss of hyper-feminised, semi-sentient softness much the way a cat eyes a disabled bird, fluttering helplessly on the ground.
All of the foregoing notwithstanding, and being careful to acknowledge the fact that we do not wish to return to a caveman society in which men capriciously drag women around by the hair, this matter of the increasingly insidious ‘feminising’ (or 'gentling', if you will) of America is an issue we all need to not just recognise but take active steps to turn around and overcome. Just how that may be achieved is yet unclear but if America is to survive being torn apart and utterly dismembered by all the contentious nonsense associated with ‘wokeness’, ‘toxic masculinity’ (and fantasyland dogma such as ‘critical race theory’, etc.), each one of us needs to respond to this challenge to manhood now, before it becomes too late.
As many of you well know from my frequent and freely shared opinionisings, I am no longer the huge fan of the ‘American democratic experiment’ that I was in my younger days. By my reckoning, the events of the present decades tend to demonstrate that rather than being the ‘shining vision on a hill’ it was formerly seen as, it has now become yet another example of how ultimately…inevitably!... no democratic society has EVER survived to thrive and endure for any prolonged stretch of time. It was as true of ancient Athens as it is in America today.
[I am further reminded, when it comes to the potential failings of any democracy, no matter how brilliantly conceived and earnestly established, of humorist George Carlin’s famed admonishment to ‘Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups’, a sentiment both echoed and supported by Kurt Andersen’s excellent and cogently argued 2017 book, ‘Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.’ E.g. If enough stupid people manage to win an election for their favored candidate, there goes the ballgame. This has often happened in America in the past but fortunately the result has never before been catastrophic. In our present state of excessively polarised, divided national sentiments, it is entirely possible for perhaps the very first time in our history.]
That is not to say that I advocate an overthrow of America the way the leftist progressives seem to (since ‘America’ should not be solely identified as synonymously congruent with its government)…not even by the most remote understanding of what I say here. Rather, my warning is that if we do not take steps to recognise and reverse the aberrant campaign to ‘deconstruct’ masculinity, we stand a good chance of losing our beloved America altogether…with all its warts, pimples, blemishes and uglier aspects, even as balanced out by its equal number of positive attributes.
In support of the above sentiments, I offer to all of you Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s recent speech to the delegates of the National Conservatism Congress on October 31st, who lays it all on the line in a most accurate and well-articulated manner. I urge that you take a few minutes to read the reasonably short text of his remarks and fully focus on what he has to say about the present war against’ toxic masculinity’ that is going on. For what it’s worth, I concur whole-heartedly with his observations and I just wish we had a Josh Hawley here in my home state of Californica (sic). Senator Hawley is from my maternal family’s home state, by the way…a state whose unofficial state motto is “The Show Me State”, which Hawley definitely does! [His remarks appear following these paragraphs.]
-------------------------------------
'The deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men,' By Sen. Josh Hawley
[This is the text of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s speech on Oct. 31 at the National Conservatism conference, which is running in Florida this year from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2.]
"Good evening. It is a pleasure to be with you tonight.
"I had the honor to be at your inaugural conference two years ago. After that speech, the Left called me a racist, a fascist, and a Nazi.
"So when Yoram invited me to speak again this year, I thought: What’s to lose?
"I spoke two years ago of the Left’s ambition to create a world beyond belonging—a world where community and shared culture—our culture—count for little. It’s part of the Left’s effort to fundamentally remake America.
"I want to talk with you tonight about another aspect of that ambition. I want to talk with you about the Left’s attempt to give us a world beyond men.
"We meet at a time of reckoning. As we speak, the Left controls the commanding heights of American society. They have the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate. Their voices predominate in the news media, in Hollywood, arguably sports, and of course, at our universities.
"This is their hour. And they are determined to use it.
"The Left know what they believe. They believe that America is a systemically racist, structurally oppressive, hopelessly patriarchal kind of place. It’s a dystopia, if only Americans would get woke enough to see it. It’s a nation that needs to be taught how unjust it truly is and after that, rebuilt from top to bottom.
"That’s the Leftist project, and that’s their grand ambition: to deconstruct America.
"This work of deconstruction is what unites today’s Left and binds together all their various preoccupations, from critical race theory to their economic socialism to their bizarre war on women’s sports.
"But what I want you to notice, what I want to call out tonight, is this fact: that the deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men.
"The Left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the traditional masculine virtues—things like courage, and independence, and assertiveness—as a danger to society.
"This is an effort the Left has been at for years now. And they have had alarming success. American men are working less, getting married in fewer numbers; they’re fathering fewer children. They are suffering more anxiety and depression. They are engaging in more substance abuse.
"Many men in this country are in crisis, and their ranks are swelling.
"And that’s not just a crisis for men. It’s a crisis for the republic.
"Because the problem with the Left’s assault on the masculine virtues is that those self-same qualities, the very ones the Left now vilify as dangerous and toxic, have long been regarded as vital to self-government.
"Observers from the ancient Romans to our forefathers identified the manly virtues as indispensable for political liberty.
"Now maybe they were wrong and today’s Left is right. Maybe virtue isn’t needed for liberty. Or maybe the only necessary virtues are the modern liberal ones of tolerance, and compliance, and I suppose, consumption. Maybe all you need to be a good citizen after all is to be a good consumer. "
"But it doesn’t look that way. It’s hard to argue that our democracy is in better shape now than it was thirty or forty years ago. It’s hard to believe that our liberty is now more secure.
"It’s hard to accept that the pathologies gripping so many American men are good for American society. I’d contend just the opposite.
"Now this is not to say that American women aren’t central to this story, far from it. American women have shaped our culture every bit as much as men, and their virtues are every bit as necessary to the success of our republic.
"And indeed, the Left is carrying out its own assault on womanhood, and on the very idea of gender.
"Many of my Democrat colleagues in the Senate won’t even say the word “mother” any more, for heaven’s sake. “Birthing people” is the term of choice, as if women don’t exist.
"And leftwing advocates across the country are trying to destroy women’s sports, as if women and men are somehow interchangeable. "
"All that too is part of the deconstructionist agenda.
"But I want to focus tonight on the deconstruction of men, not because men are more important, but because I believe the attack on men has been the tip of the spear of the Left’s broader attack on America. And because this attack on men is already far advanced.
"But even as I describe the danger, there is cause for hope. For while the Left’s assault on manhood has been sharp and prolonged, it has not yet succeeded. And we must make it our aim as conservatives to see that it does not succeed. "
"More than that, we must seek a revival of strong and healthy manhood in America. We need men who will shoulder responsibility, men who will start and provide for families, men who will enter the covenant of marriage and then honor it.
"We need men to raise up sons and daughters after them, to pass on the great truths of our culture and history, to defend liberty, to share in the work of self-government.
"We need the kind of men who make republics possible.
"And it is not too much to say that our ability to get that kind of men will determine the success of our long experiment in liberty.
"Let me start by pressing home this point. The Left’s attack on America leads directly to an attack on manhood.
"For years now, Democrats and other leftists have insisted that American society is systemically oppressive, systemically evil and unjust. They’ve said it so much and so often that to them, it’s become a truism. It’s become the very cornerstone of their worldview.
"Just listen to the President of the United States. Joe Biden has, as president, repeatedly referred to America’s “systemic racism.” His Administration has loudly called for a new “gender equity” agenda to right the structural injustices of our society.
"His nominees have advocated critical race theory and training in “equity” for federal workers.
"This past week the Administration celebrated the introduction of an “X” gender marker on American passports. X means neither male nor female, if you’re keeping up.
"All this points to how important the deconstructionist agenda is to Team Biden and to the Left. Inflation is rampant, store shelves are bare, but the Administration won’t be distracted from what truly matters, exposing just how bad America is.
"Other prominent liberals have taken the next step and identified America’s many alleged woes with men in particular.
"Take Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. “White supremacy and patriarchy are linked in a lot of ways,” she says. Meaning that America’s systemic racism is a systemic problem with men.
"Author John Stoltenberg writes that “talking about ‘healthy masculinity’ is like talking about `healthy cancer.’”
"Professor Suzanna Walters of Northeastern University says it “seems logical to hate men” unless they “pledge to vote for feminist women only” and “don’t run for office.”
"Now this line of thinking is hardly new. The critical theory of deconstruction runs back to mid-century intellectuals like Jacques Derrida and Herbert Marcuse; and farther back to the Frankfurt School of the 1930s; and back farther still to Marx.
"Nor is it new to blame men for society’s ills. Marcuse in particular is interesting in this regard. He was one of the leading lights of the 1960s counter-culture, and he thought Marx was right to call western society structurally oppressive, but wrong to see that oppression as principally economic.
"No, the really oppressive thing about American society, he said, was culture.
"And while Marx pinned his hopes on working class men, the proletariat, Marcuse saw those same men as the problem. They were too culturally conservative. Too hidebound. Too traditional.
"Marcuse concluded the revolution would only come from the well-educated elite, who could see beyond mirages like manhood.
"Which brings us back to today’s American Left. They’ve swallowed this theory whole and they are delivering this message from every platform where they have power. Which is most everywhere.
"University curricula abound with seminars on masculinity and its defects. To take but one sample of what’s on offer, consider Professor David Cohen of Drexel Kline School of Law: “Traditional masculinity,” he says, “has oppressed girls and women and limited the identity construction of all boys and men.”
"A seminar at Williams College, called “Performing Masculinity in Global Popular Culture,” asks “Why must masculinity be the purview of males at all?” Answering that question will cost you $75,000 a year.
"Even our military academies are in on the act. West Point reportedly held mandatory events last year addressing “gender norms,” including “toxic masculinity.” One cadet said afterwards, “I’m being taught how not to be a man.”
"Men are getting the message. They’re leaving higher education in record numbers. I suspect you’ve seen the recent Wall Street Journal reporting: Women now make up 60 percent of college students; men, 40 percent. Experts predict a 2:1 ratio soon, with the trend sped up by the pandemic.
"But the message of toxic masculinity is not only in the academy. It’s in our grade schools, where boys are increasingly treated like an illness in search of a cure. If boys are too rambunctious, they’re diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder and medicated into submission.
"Hollywood delivers the toxic masculinity theme ad nauseum in television and film.
"And our expert class amplifies it. The American Psychological Association now advises that “conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development … and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” Manhood is a disease to be defeated.
"The Left delivers the same message in the press, through the corporations, and through advertising. Gillette infamously ran an ad campaign for its razors in 2019 that included this voice-over: “Bullying … MeToo movement against sexual harassment … toxic masculinity … is this the best a man can get?”
"And the Left is writing this same men-are-the-problem mantra into policy.
"Working class men have been a particular target for this Administration. President Biden’s illegal vaccine mandate on private citizens puts millions of working class men squarely in the cross hairs. Shut up, get the jab, or get lost.
"Nevermind these are the very people hailed as “essential workers” not twelve months ago. Not anymore. Now they’re expendable. Now they’re the problem.
"But the Left has been pursuing its attack on men through policy for longer than the last year, and sometimes with the help of Republicans.
"Over the last thirty years and more, government policy has helped destroy the kind of economy that gave meaning to generations of men.
"Domestic manufacturing once supported millions of American men with good wages, who in turn started and supported families. Now that industry lies all but dead on the altar of globalism.
"At the same time, advancing consolidation has made it almost impossible for family farmers to compete against multinational firms.
"The result is fewer and fewer men working. And I don’t mean the elderly or disabled, I mean prime-aged, able-bodied men.
"Since 1965, the number of adult men between the ages of twenty and sixty-four not working—not even looking for work, but completely and totally out of the labor force—has quintupled, soaring from 3 million in the 1960s to more than 16 million in 2015.
"And the less men work, the less they marry.
"Marriage rates are plummeting. And the age of first marriage continues to rise, as men push commitment off further and further into the future.
"By 2010, a majority of men in this country between 25 and 34 had never married. And that trend has accelerated since.
"Fewer marriages means fewer fathers in the home. By 2020, over 18 million American children lived without a father present. That’s more than a quarter of all children in America. And I probably don’t need to remind you that an absent father is strongly correlated with increased childhood poverty, childhood depression, and poor academic performance.
"I am not here tonight to tell you that men are victims. The last thing we need more of in this country is the victim mindset. And men who blame others for their problems and then slink away to do nothing, or worse, who embrace violence or cruelty, deserve rebuke.
"Responsibility is one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind, and men must be held responsible for their actions.
"Still … can we be surprised that after years of being told they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness, and pornography, and video games.
"I found the comment by one young man to the Wall Street Journal particularly evocative, and particularly heartbreaking. He said, “I’m sort of waiting for a light to come on so I can figure out what to do next.” I suspect he speaks for many.
"And while the Left may celebrate this decline of men, I for one cannot join them. No one should.
"The crisis of American men is a crisis for the American republic.
"It’s not just that millions of men out of work slows our innovation and economic growth.
"It’s not just the billions of dollars in welfare payments these idle men cost the federal fisc year on year.
"It’s not only the depression and darkness that now shadow so many.
"It’s that liberty requires virtue. And in particular, it requires the manly virtues.
"America needs good men. …
"The liberty of a republic is a demanding thing.
"To keep a republic, you have to be willing to fight for it.
"To share in self-government, you have to stand strong against those who would try to make you dependent on their wealth or influence.
"To preserve liberty, you have to discipline your passions and sacrifice in the service of others.
"For centuries, lovers of liberty have praised these qualities as the highest standard of manhood. That’s not to say that women don’t possess them. But it is to say that these virtues are the bright side of the aggression and competitiveness and independence that psychologists, no less than philosophers, have long observed in men.
"Assertiveness and independence are strengths when used to protect and empower others.
"Want an example? Look no further than those dads at Southwood High School in Shreveport, Louisiana. The ones who just by showing up, calmed the fighting and changed the atmosphere of an entire campus. As one student said to a reporter, “Dads have the power to do that.”
"Every republic needs those kind of men.
"The question is, how are we going to raise up good men today?
"We can start by repudiating the lie that America is a systemically oppressive nation and that men are systemically responsible.
"It is a fantasy, it is a folly, it is a falsehood and we should call it out for what it is.
"America may be an imperfect place, but it is the most noble experiment in liberty the world has ever seen, for the poor and the rich alike, for men and for women, for black and for white.
"And though we have struggled to live up to our ideals—and failed, and risen to struggle again—there is honor in the struggle, and we are still, even now, the last best, hope on earth.
"And we must tell the men of this nation that their struggle, too, is noble and that they are needed.
"To each man, I say: You can be a tremendous force for good. Your nation needs you. The world needs you.
"Your strength can liberate others. Your power can serve those in need. Your creativity can light new paths. Your courage can defend the weak. Your faithfulness can raise up sons and daughters after you and make their way straight. You can make this a more perfect nation.
"We must say this to men of our society from the time they are small, and teach it to them in our classrooms and in our homes and in our churches.
"And we must do more.
"We must rebuild an economy in this country in which men can thrive. And that means rebuilding those manufacturing and production sectors that so much of the chattering class has written off as relics of the past.
"In this country, we are more than mere consumers. We have been the makers of great and mighty things, and we shall be again.
"The DC experts will say it’s impossible; better to outsource our production to China or Mexico or other places where labor is cheap. But free labor and slave labor should never be put on an even plane. And it is free labor worthy of free men that we are after.
"Theodore Roosevelt once said, “I am for business, but I am for manhood first, and business as an adjunct to manhood.” He was right then, and that sentiment should be our watchword today. "
We must make every effort to restore a vibrant manufacturing sector in this country that can employ working men at living wages—wages that can feed a family, and support a community. And we can start by requiring that at least half of all goods and supplies critical for our national security be made in the United States.
"Speaking of communities, those begin with the family, and we must make the family the center of political life.
"We should be clear in the message we send about family and unapologetic: There is no higher calling, and no greater duty, than raising a family. And we should encourage all men to pursue it.
"To that end, I believe the time has come for explicit rewards in our tax code for marriage. Forget the marriage penalty. There should be a marriage bonus. And we should allow the parents of young children to keep more of their own money as well. …
"The Left is telling America and its men, you’re evil. You’re terrible. You must apologize and submit to your government masters to be reformed.
"I suggest we offer a different theme, one that goes like this. … America is yet that city on a hill, and the eyes of the world are yet upon us, looking to us for hope.
"American men are and can be an unrivaled force for good in the world—if we can strengthen them, if we can empower them, if we can unleash them to be who they are made to be.
"Then they shall, in the words of Scripture, “build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former desolations; they shall repair the ruined cities, [and] the devastations of many generations.”
"God bless you. Good night."
[Josh Hawley is a U.S. senator from Missouri and former Missouri attorney general.]
------------------
Postscript: I should state that, just for the record, I am not myself a 'believer' in supreme beings, nor do I subscribe to the 'antivaxxers', who claim that the COVID-19 immunisation effort is a vast governmental plot to repress individual rights. The current pandemic is most definitely NOT a matter of exercising individual rights...it is, plain and simply, a dire public health emergency and in such instances all such arguments about constitutional rights properly take a subordinate role in the colloquy. -K2
,
