Dan did a fine job yesterday pointing up the almost surreal blinkeredness of David Neiwert’s bizarre attempt to play Dr Phil to the blogosphere’s troubled hypermasculinist “conservatives” — which Neiwert does in a strained argument for redefining masculinity that echoes not only Jim Henley’s musings on the topic, but also the much longer disquisition from Dr Ric Caric, whose essay on the “weenie man” I linked and (obliquely) commented on several weeks ago.
Interestingly, Caric’s recent argument that “color-blindenss” is code for “primary racism” (and that conservatives who argue for such are really just water carriers for Kleagles desperate to beat back the lust they feel for Pam Grier or Beyonce) tracks perfectly with Neiwert’s earlier attempt to explain how the lack of clearly demonstrable racism on the part of conservatives not named Pat Buchanan is, to those attuned to the rhetorical subtleties of the conservative movement, proof of the wide-ranging “extremism transmission” that they try so desperately to hide — though I’m sure the revelation that Caric and Neiwert share arguments like a pair of less authentically masculine men might a watermelon wine cooler is but a coincidence, the result of the same rotten memetic seeds producing similarly rotten fruit yields.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
At any rate, Ric Locke’s response in the comments to Dan’s post so captured the absurdity of these kinds of arguments that I thought I’d give it pride of place here:
The “fuss†is in watching the contortions.
The Leftists are again attacking the Rightists, and the result is somewhere between ironic and knee-slappingly hilarious, because as usual they aren’t attacking us at all  they’re expending untold quantities of ammunition against the stereotype they’ve built in their heads, and the puzzlement they express when we chuckle as their bolts go wide is a wonder to behold. This particular attack is a variant of the “chickenhawk†argument, and most Leftists are still scratching their heads over that one. How could it possibly go wrong? What are those idiots laughing at?
So: “weenie boysâ€Â. Neiwart expresses the stereotype pretty clearly:
…conservatives, who seem to obsess about [masculinity], but in a peculiarly juvenile way…
In other words the assumption upon which his whole argument is built is that conservatives are poseurs who are unsure of their masculinity and adopt cliché-masculine symbols as self-reinforcement. By attacking and deriding those symbols, he hopes to disgrace and embarrass the “masculinists†by forcing them to either discard the pose or attempt to defend it in ways that reveal it as a pose.
The problem is that it actually works the other way. People who are in fact masculine (or feminine!) don’t maintain a checklist: Well, I need to demonstrate that I’m masculine, therefore I shall buy a gun/cheer a sports team/ogle nubile teenagers/ride a motorcycle. Instead they do those things and others automatically, without thinking or any specific intent, because they are expressions of the underlying characteristic. Neiwart and Prof. Caric hope to turn that process on its head, discrediting their opponents and gaining for themselves the epithet “masculineâ€Â.
The ambition discredits itself, almost by definition. It is they who are longing  demanding!  to be called masculine, and trying to define a new set of symbols as the flags of that state. They are thus the poseurs in the case, and watching them perform is sometimes hilarious.
Consider Prof. Caric. George Bush isn’t a big fellow; in college he recognized that fact, and was secure enough in his masculine identity to not only avoid letting the jocks challenge it, but to take on a (stereotypically feminine) role as a cheerleader (and, not incidentally, provide himself a remarkable number of opportunities to feel up hot chicks in the line of duty, so to speak). This, according to the Professor, identifies GWB as a “weenie boyâ€Â. What it actually does, of course, is to reveal Prof. Caric himself as something approaching an existential definition of what he claims to deplore, a futile jock-wannabee who couldn’t make the grade and prefers to utter his insults in pseudo-profound academese rather than argot  while keeping the content the same.
Enter Mr. Neiwert. In order to achieve his goal, he must redefine the cultural markers he expresses as being “masculineâ€Â. He fails, of course, but it’s fun to watch him flail about in futility. I suppose it ought to engender sympathy, but he and his fellows have been nasty enough in the past to wear that right out.
[…]
“Masculine behavior†is whatever behavior masculine people express. I had a shipmate, long ago, who was an almost embarrassing caricature of the “girl in every port†sailor. He was five foot nothing, weighed maybe 130 in wet clothes, and had a face like a frog  but give him ten minutes, and the prettiest girl in the bar would be hanging over his every word, and the rest of the women would be stealing glances his way and touching their tongues to their upper lips. I have no count of the number of six-two hulks with broad shoulders and finely chiseled features I’ve met who couldn’t attach a woman if the nunnery closed down, and even plumbing isn’t absolutely determinative: one of the most masculine people I’ve ever encountered was distinctly concave about the pudenda and wore about a B cup. (One night, when the pickings were slim to nonexistent and conversation was the preferable form of intercourse, one of the other guys asked Lin if she’d ever considered a sex change. Response: “::snort:: Those losers. It wouldn’t give me the upper body strength, and if I want a dick I’ll just use yours for a while.†Masculine.)
We all learn, at an early age, the socially constructed expressions of masculinity appropriate for our society, and as we mature we pick and choose from that menu to form our own personas. Those social constructs are, in turn, constructed from what might be termed the congenital forms, the inherent qualities bequeathed to us by our genes; some of the constructs are intended to enhance positive qualities as defined by the specific society, others to suppress destructive ones. The list of available “natural†expressions plus social constructs is long, complex, and sometimes contradictory; there are plenty of ways to express masculinity in ways that differ from others’ expressions. That much is normal and indeed inevitable.
What cannot be done is to reverse the process. Masculine people exhibit behaviors taken from the menu, which they choose (generally unconsciously) according to their particular personality. Deliberately choosing a behavior which is stereotypically “masculine†and attempting to consciously exhibit it inevitably fails to achieve the goal of attracting feminine companionship, as whole legions of customers of Charles Atlas and Harley-Davidson have discovered. Sympathetic magic doesn’t work. The arrow of causality only has one point.
Neiwart and others like him not only try to do it backward, they attempt to take it one step further. They fully trust in sympathetic magic; they believe implicitly that if they express the proper behaviors the Universe will shift to accommodate their desires; but (for whatever reason) they find the available menu of “masculine behaviors†unpalatable. Therefore they attempt to define a new set of behaviors as “masculineâ€Â, and insist upon being judged manly on the basis of the new definition; by an odd coincidence, the behaviors they insist are “masculine†are the ones they themselves express. The effectiveness of that effort can be easily determined by an objective metric  divide his girl friend’s bra size by her waist measurement. (Curb your objections, sir. It’s a flawed metric, but it’ll do as a first approximation. I personally come out pretty piss-poor by it.)
The self-deconstruction Dan mentions flows from that. Neiwart is properly scornful of people who attempt to simulate masculinity by picking stereotypically masculine behaviors and expressing them artificially; he fails to acknowledge that he’s doing exactly the same (futile) thing, and simultaneously attempting to compel Universe to bend to his will. Me, I just laugh.
So much of leftist rhetoric is an attempt simply to shame opponents into compliance — you don’t agree with race-based affirmative action as policy? You are a racist. You don’t support legalizing same-sex marriage as a civil right? You are a homophobe — followed by an effort to redefine terms (“racist”, “homophobe,” “masculine”) in the social vacuum created by that shaming mechanism.
Thus, Professor Caric — who redefines “color-blindness†as “primary racism,†and “race consciousness†as the new egalitarianism. Those who argue for a color-blind legal system today were the Jim Crow apologists and slavery boosters of yesteryear: they hate the Other, embrace white supremacy, and provide intellectual cover for crackers armed with lynching ropes and razor wire for erecting border fences. Whereas those who advocate for the continuation of a social program that perpetuates racialist policy — and flies in the face of individual liberty? They are the self-proclaimed champions of civil rights.
And now, Neiwert — who performatively redefines masculinity as that which talks incessantly about how it would never talk incessantly about masculinity (much less engage in any of its gendered conspicuous consumption). Those who refer to masculinity without the requisite disclaimers about how it is unmasculine to refer to masculinity can lay no claim to that real masculinity  which evidently comes from recognizing that real masculinity is seldom pointed out by really masculine people, unless they are pointing it out to show how pointing it out is unmasculine.
Which, in turn, makes them masculine for the effort.
Of course, the short version of this doesn’t require such contortions: To Caric, those who disagree with him are racists; to Neiwert, those who don’t share his contrived view of masculinity are faux-masculine.
Or, even better, racism is what Ric Caric says it is; and masculinity is what David Neiwert says it is.
The authority to define and shame comes from presumptuousness and, I suspect, a bit of self-loathing.
Caric would do well to read Thomas Sowell. And for his part, Neiwert should rent every Charles Bronson movie made before, say, 1983.
****
Special Update for those of you visiting from Pandagon.
And then there are those what says “why choose?”
Compare and despair.
there’s a link what goes with that
Neiwart writes:
Either he hasn’t noticed the obsession with this topic on the Left side of the blosphere or the irony is lost on him.
So, is the left trying to convince everyone that Hillary! is the new soul of masculinity or something?
I think someone should take this Neiwert fella and…smack his gob!
Oh, dear. Was that too hypermasculine of me?
Yaknow, I see this all the time at my husband’s job. People making fun of him and calling him a metrosexual because I give him things like lotion bars (with bunnies on them!) and chocolates and stuff. And he actually ENJOYS them, god forbid.
Oh, wait, my husband is one of about three conservatives who work in a school district employing ten thousand! I wonder who’s so concerned about his masculinity that they bring it up?
Either he hasn’t noticed the obsession with this topic on the Left side of the blosphere or the irony is lost on him.
Here, at least, the attempted parallel with racism actually works. Our racist code words are supposed to be like a dog whistle tuned only to rightist ears– but for some reason, only leftists ever bark.
Chocolate is always good, but I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest notion what a “lotion bar” is…
Neiwert says he’s been a stay at home dad — don’t all the libtards have their panties in a bunch that Jeff does the same? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a fair share of their derogatory comments on it.
” So much of leftist rhetoric is an attempt simply to shame opponents into compliance.. ”
Damn you Goldstein . I was just getting comfortable cashing in my carbon debits … bastard …
“Neiwert should rent every Charles Bronson movie made before, say, 1983.”
You just wanna make him cry, don’t you? You big….. BULLY!
Ric Locke is obviously not just a mans’ man, but a “masculine-man”© mans’ man with added manliness (and a touch of Lion).
As opposed to Neiwert who is a kind of “feminist-man”© mans’ woman with 50% less weiner and a hint of jojoba and tea-tree oils to reduce transfats and give day long feminist freshness.
Jim, a lotion bar looks like a bar of soap but it’s lotion in a solid form. You rub it on your hands and it goes on a little thicker and stays in place a little better than liquid lotion. It smells really good too :D
My husband’s partial to the grapefruit/lime bar. I’m sure you could order one for your girlfriend/wife/mom/secretary without raising any eyebrows. Jordan Essentials carries the ones we prefer. I included a link in the above post but it musta been broken because it didn’t show up.
This is from the comments at the original Dr. Helen post on PJM:
This obviously didn’t occur to Neiwert either, but what kind of jumps out is how similar his critique is to a recent deconstruction of conservative femininity…
Alice–damn, I thought it was a name for an edible treat. Doesn’t sound very tasty, though.
(I just use girly soap–Dove, I think it is–and pass on the lotion thing.)
If you want yummy tasty edible treats try these. If I can make the link work. God, I hate having no preview.
On my suggestion, my husband gave a box of these to his administrative assistant on administrative assistant’s day and actually got a hug from her for it. I’m not sure I should be suggesting my husband buy other women treats that result in physical contact.
– And so continues the march of Hubris, as the Ill-Liberals attempt to redefine, not just the lexicon and narrative, but now the very meaning of human nature.
– I’m awaiting with great anticipation for the day when they run out of dictionary, and redefine themselves; as trivializing vacuous assholes.
– My best guess is the well spring that belched this “self-decribed inadaquacy” outburst stems from some past encounter of Neiwert with a group of “men” in a sports bar or something. Reading his poofy comments, it must have been ugly.
– Incidently, it is generally recognized that whenever an author pens some treakle on any given subject, it usually means he’s, at least for the moment, more or less obssessing on the subject. If these two academic poofters need relief, they should try a lap dance bar or some such thing. They’ll tske their money, no matter how effiminate they act.
– Fantasizing that you’re Billy Jack won’t grow it anymore inches. Whatever you were born with better be something you can live with because it doesn’t get any bigger with age, use, or by writing mind numbing tripe.
Grrr…link didn’t come through.
http://agrandefinale.com/products.php?cat=21
Alice, now I’m starving. Knock it off!
(I will say I’d probably be at least tempted to give your husband a hug if he bought me some of those, though.)
“I’m not sure I should be suggesting my husband buy other women treats that result in physical contact.”
Depends on whether stamina is a significant issue. Vitamins and exercise can help quite a bit but there is a limit.
Why is the Left so set on categorizing and defining everyone and every action? Is it the freedom of self-expression that frightens them? As a “feminine” woman I should ditch my hip flask and stop watching all forms of boxing and sci-fi? And my extremely “masculine” husband shouldn’t cook quite so much? C’mon…I thought we covered all this back in the 70’s. And what an insane need to point out people’s skin color or sexuality and use it as a battering ram to change social policy and pose as somehow superior…ridiculous!
Lyndsey, we’ve decided that if your flask contains something sweet and fruity, we’ll allow you to keep it.
For now, at least.
Too funny!
“One night, when the pickings were slim to nonexistent and conversation was the preferable form of intercourse, one of the other guys asked Lin if she’d ever considered a sex change. Response: “::snort:: Those losers. It wouldn’t give me the upper body strength, and if I want a dick I’ll just use yours for a while.””
…
…
Say, you wouldn’t happen to have Lin’s phone number handy, would you?
OT – Beavis and Buttslapper dodge a bullet. That’ll make Darleen happy.
“- Fantasizing that you’re Billy Jack won’t grow it anymore inches. Whatever you were born with better be something you can live with because it doesn’t get any bigger with age, use, or by writing mind numbing tripe.”
….so now what……. you’re trying to say I have to just accept it ….
“Neiwart is properly scornful of people who attempt to simulate masculinity by picking stereotypically masculine behaviors and expressing them artificially;”
Unless I miss my guess, this Niewart fella’s 18 hour girdle was wadded up denser’n’a meteor over Kerry’s “Can I get me a huntin’ license?” gambit.
A while back I was contacted by someone from high school thru Classmates.com. I’ve been out of high school longer than most of you here have been alive. I couldn’t remember him, so I dug out the old yearbooks to find a picture. My d-i-l was there and as we went through the senior class pictures, I was pointing out the guys who were the most popular and she said, “they’re so dweebie looking.” I realized that the guys I drooled over back in high school really weren’t the best looking or sexiest looking guys in the class. Almost without exception, the most popular were the guys who made us laugh, had quick wits and a kind of diabolical sense of humor and who always had time for everyone, whether the cutest cheerleader or the shyest wallflower, they seemed to know without being told, how to make a girl feel special. They liked people and people liked them. Some were jocks, some worked on the school paper, nearly all were in school government because we liked them and elected them. They never thought that the accomplishments of others took away from their. They celebrated the jocks who brought us wins in sports, they celebrated the geeks who brought us awards in the science fairs. They did not go thru life as if it is a zero sum game.
Then as I got older and reflected back on the various guys I’d been most attracted to, I realized it was their personal power as reflected in their comfortableness with who they are and where they fit in the larger scheme of things. Manly men don’t have to blow their own horn, they mostly don’t even consider they have anything to crow about because their manliness is so natural to them. As Ric says, you got it or you don’t.
Hint to men: earning a good living or keeping yourself in tip top physical shape is laudable, but the bottom line is, women want you to be their protector, their knight in shining armor. They want to feel safe when they are with you and know that you will be there to watch their backs. You don’t have to be King Kong to do that, you don’t have to be a jerk to do that, you don’t have to have a huge bank account to do that, you don’t have to have a “big one” to do that. It is all a matter of attitude, not size, not money, not motorcycles or flashy cars. Real women do not like whiny men! And, unfortunately, all these metrosexual leftists are is whiny as evidenced by the original article.
PS: As a disclaimer, I should say that I think George Bush is one of the manliest men in America and one of the sexiest too. I love his understated and misundestimated confidence. And I can’t believe I am going to add Karl Rove to my list of manly men today after reading Malkin’s latest, Rove’s gift basket for the Seattle Times.
All this to say “I am not ghey!” seriously, any man who is secure in himself is who he is, if he likes aathletic competition or the Opera, it doesn’t matter. You are who you are. This is a maturity thing, I’m 55, I know my strengths and weaknesses. I am more masculine than some, less than others. It’s not a right or left thing, but when I see the “tolerant” left reduced to challenging their opponents masculinity (or sexuality!) it makes me shake my head. Men are men, and learn through their life how to be men. If they are fortunate, they have wise fathers that help shape their character, if not (cheap shot warning) they become lefties.(that last was a joke![sorta])
A lefty challenged my masculinity once. I hissed and clawed his eyes out, the little he-bitch!
a lefty challenged my masculinity once, too.
With his keyboard.
Hi, Timmah!
It’s always a fun read when Jeff takes apart these idiots–and Ric, you da man–but honestly, it’s just the same shit over and over again. The point where they became parodies of themselves is lost so far back in the mists of time that H.G. Wells couldn’t find it.
Oh, and by the way, size does matter.
Oh, and by the way, size does matter.
Spoken like a man! The best lover I ever had was on the smallish side. He was such an accomplished lover, I didn’t have time to worry about his size or lack thereof, while on the other hand, the worst sex I ever had was with a guy who never got why he was such a lousy lover. Afterall, he was hung like a horse and proud of it. So proud! Boring and painful as far as I was concerned.
The authority to define and shame comes from presumptuousness and, I suspect, a bit of self-loathing.
And maybe some bad rye bread.
“Boring and painful as far as I was concerned.”
– Would it be impolite to point out those were a singularly good choice of words? Hopefully he was done with the boring before it got too painful.
I think what Niewart is getting at is, as a conservative, you have a couple options –
1) Bookish, weedy, pale, pudgy or too-thin, interested in some ‘masculine’ stuff – clearly teh ghey. Not manly at all; or, 2) Macho, manly, maybe a steel worker or fighter jock, tanned, all over the women – clearly overcompensating, therefore teh ghey.
Bush as chearleader & commander in chief at war – teh ghey. Bush the fighter jock and captain of his college rugby team – overcompensating and clearly teh closet ghey.
Got it? In case you missed the point, they think we’re all teh ghey.
Tee hee hee. Sorry, can’t stop giggling about it. It’s a pretty funny political theory for guys with PhDs after their names to be advancing – “our opponents… they’re a pack of queers!” Man, I haven’t heard incisive logic built around that argument since I was 10 years old.
The best picture of a confidently masculine man in recent public life was Rudy Giuliani appearing at a NYC Press Club dinner (or whatever) in full drag. That was someone not concerned about people getting the wrong idea.
Well, it coulda been true, Nazis!
What exactly is a pseudo-fascist?
[…] Straw Men August 20th, 2007 Ready to get a little dizzy? And here, Neiwert  who performatively redefines masculinity as that which talks incessantly […]
OK. Why is it that men have this category called “not a real man,” whereas women do not? No one ever insulted a woman by calling her a tomboy, but if you call a boy a sissy, be prepared to defend yourself.
I said: NAZIs!
Yeah, whatever. I can kick both their asses.
“And maybe some bad rye bread.”
– Ummmmm….If he’s calling us all Teh Ghey shouldn’t that be:
….And maybe some rancid quiche.
The fact that I own guns has less connection to my masculinity than the fact that my wee wifey owned one before I met her has to do with her femininity. As a woman on her own she found it came in handy.
The only thing that has anything to do with my masculinity is that I’ve been a pretty good husband for nearly thirty five years, and fathered and raised a son I could be proud of.
“So much of leftist rhetoric is an attempt simply to shame opponents into compliance  you don’t agree with race-based affirmative action as policy? You are a racist; you don’t support legalizing same-sex marriage as a civil right? You are a homophobe  followed by an effort to redefine terms (â€Âracistâ€Â, “homophobe,†“masculineâ€Â) in the social vacuum created by that shaming mechanism.”
Ayn Rand called it the Argument from Intimidation. “The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: ‘Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc) can hold such an idea.'” Since she wrote that in 1964, the argument has added a new twist. There should be no need to explain why the advocacy of a color-blind society is racist. It’s self-evident to any moral person. But if it’s not, we can arbitrarily redefine our terms so that such advocacy is analytically the same as racism.
Why does such a stupid argument work? It works, as Rand pointed out, because people are taught to sacrifice their own judgment to the judgment of others. If the masses say a thing, or if enough authorities say a thing, then it must be true. Who am I to gainsay them? Who am I to judge?
Cause, you know, if I start thinking my judgment is better than other people’s, the next thing I know I might be frying up some guy’s liver for dinner. That’s a real slippery slope there.
If the masses say a thing, or if enough authorities say a thing, then it must be true.
people are taught to sacrifice their own judgment to the judgment of others.
What should I do with my banana peel, if I’m concerned about global warming? Should I send it down my food waste disposer to a wastewater treatment plant and let it be turned into fertilizer? Should I put it in a garbage truck and send it to a landfill or incinerator? Should I compost it in my backyard?  Kendall Christiansen of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Harris: Well, that’s an interesting question. I think that probably composting it in your backyard would be the best option, because you might be able to turn it into a little soil carbon and the carbon might stay in the soil, but the other options aren’t too bad either. There’s not much carbon in a banana peel to begin with. And let’s not forget the carbon in the banana started in the atmosphere. The banana plant grabbed it out of the atmosphere and put it in a banana. So even if you burned it or tossed it in the landfill, as long as you don’t produce methane gas in the process in burying it in the landfill, you can’t really go too far wrong with your banana peel disposal.
I just saw that – they for real misspelled Reagan.
“So even if you burned it or tossed it in the landfill, as long as you don’t produce methane gas in the process in burying it in the landfill, you can’t really go too far wrong with your banana peel disposal.”
Yeah, sacrificing for others still leaves those damned others around to live like selfish little bastards. Sacrificing for rocks and trees, though, that’s real sacrifice. That’s everybody on the planet worshipping a big fat zero, and you cannot get more self-sacrificial than that.
I heard an environmentalist on NPR a few years ago put forth–jokingly, but not really–the ultimate solution to all our environmental problems. He said that the only real way to solve them was for humans to stop having children for a hundred years. He might have that kind of patience, but I don’t think most of the guys at ELF do. I strongly suspect that if they could ever take hold of the reins of power, they would make a rush job of it.
And here I thought that the appropriate way to dispose of a banana peel was by smoking it.
What should I do with my banana peel, if I’m concerned about global warming?
Dry it and smoke it, of course.
The bottom line is that masculine/feminine behavior is rewarded by success or failure with the opposite sex. Assuming we are dealing with the non-gay population which is a small fraction.
So women have made clear in the mating market what types of behavior they reward, and what they punish. Men respond to the demands or they don’t succeed.
Women also compete. A woman who doesn’t shave her legs/underarms, does little for her appearance will have less success than a woman who does those things.
Behavior is all about maximizing the success in the mating market.
Somehow I doubt that Lee Marvin sat around obsessing about his masculinity when he was to deliver the line “I never went in for embroidery, just results” in The Dirty Dozen.
By the way, on his comment “one of the most masculine people I’ve ever encountered was distinctly concave about the pudenda and wore about a B cup” might be an indicator of limited sample size. Generally, as a scientist, I’d suggest taking data from, you know, “men” when studing, say, “male behavior.” It’s kind like the way we look at oil wells as an indicator to where oil might be as opposed to, say, butterflies. Just a suggestion.
Spoken like a man! The best lover I ever had was on the smallish side. He was such an accomplished lover, I didn’t have time to worry about his size or lack thereof, while on the other hand, the worst sex I ever had was with a guy who never got why he was such a lousy lover. Afterall, he was hung like a horse and proud of it. So proud! Boring and painful as far as I was concerned.
Spoken like a woman who hasn’t a clue what I just said, and on top of that, one who is perfectly willing to stereotype me in an insultingly condescending way based on her own ignorance. I know it was a short, simple, declarative sentence, but perhaps you should read it again. Nowhere in that sentence did I say or imply that men with small penises can’t be good lovers. Those are two completely different concepts, sweetheart. Not to mention that it was a general statement anyway, it wasn’t necessarily about sex.
“Size doesn’t matter” is an inane statement, usually made by someone who is taking pains to portray him or herself as being morally and intellectually superior. Or it’s a statement designed to reassure men with small penises. I have no idea what it is in your case, but have you ever been in the mental health field? Just a guess.
“I realized it was their personal power as reflected in their comfortableness with who they are and where they fit in the larger scheme of things. Manly men don’t have to blow their own horn, they mostly don’t even consider they have anything to crow about because their manliness is so natural to them.”
That just about describes the most “masculine” man I have known – a Command Sergeant Major of a BCT, name of Bowman. I was taller, bigger and outwardly more “masculine” than him – but he radiated personal confidence, power and charisma. Women were attracted to him, men followed him almost ‘naturally’ – the Afghan Militia in our area literally wept when he announced his tour was up and he was leaving. And he was as modest and unassuming as the Afghan summer was hot. I know exactly what you meant.
[…] someone else who has no concern about other’s questions about his “manliness”: JG) Sphere: Related […]
“So much of leftist rhetoric is an attempt simply to shame opponents into compliance.” – Have you ever noticed how feminine the left is?
“The bottom line is that masculine/feminine behavior is rewarded by success or failure with the opposite sex.”
I dunno. I still remember when Leif Garrett and Sean Cassidy had hoards of females swooning over them. Okay, the females were all 13 and under, but still, I don’t trust women to define masculinity for us.
And if I were a woman, I wouldn’t trust men to define femininity. It would consist almost exclusively of wearing French maid uniforms sans underwear.
What works to get someone in the sack isn’t always a virtue to live by.
Personally, I take a very minimalist view. I believe that masculinity consists of aggressive dominance, and femininity is passive submission: the desire to take and the desire to be taken. I don’t think that’s changed one whit by the fact that a rational man doesn’t want a doormat for a wife, and a rational woman doesn’t want a neanderthal. It’s the difference between a dash of salt and the whole box, one is spicy and the other is unpalatable. You have to know the right amount to suit your taste, and your partner’s, but in general masculinity and feminiity are very small parts of the whole person. They give our personalities a certain flavor and an impetus, but beyond that spice, the rest is about being an adult and practicing the virtues that make one an attractive mate: being rational, honest, and responsible, having a sense of humor and a proper perspective, etc. When the spice grows too strong, it begins to overpower those virtues, which are our true substance. If it grows to weak, though, it makes us bland and boring. Ernest Haycox played with this theme in a lot of his novels, the best of which is The Earthbreakers.
“Nothing so focuses the mind like the prospect of a cock slap” — Sam Johnson.
You know, for the trolls.
Had to look up pudenda :(
[…] Manly Unmanly Men Acting Unmanly to Prove Manliness And here, Neiwert  who performatively redefines masculinity as that which talks incessantly about how it would never talk incessantly about masculinity (much less engage in any of its gendered conspicuous consumption). Those who refer to masculinity without the requisite disclaimers about how it is unmasculine to refer to masculinity can lay no claim to that real masculinity  which evidently comes from recognizing that real masculinity is seldom pointed out by really masculine people, unless they are pointing it out to show how pointing it out is unmasculine. […]
I dunno if I’d advocate something as drastic as all that, but I think it’s a good idea to shrink the population back to, say, half its current level, or less. Which, given my politics, probably makes me a eugenicist (and, ultimately, a NAZI!!!1!!), but if I were otherly-politicked, I’d be a freaking visionary.
Or, even better, racism is what Ric Caric says it is.
Racist.
All of this is just proving my point, hypermasculine racists!
If you’ve got to sit around talking about it, you ain’t got it.
Y’know, I was one of Professor Caric’s students back in the days before 9-11. He used to be a lot fairer-minded than this and never injected this sort of ideological assault into the classroom. I’m sincerely disappointed to see that that’s changed and he’s chosen to take this tack to attack people who disagree with him. I always thought of him as the perfect example of a principled person who disagreed with me on a political level.
Cognitive dissonance, anyone? I believe the Xtian Taliban has FAR more desire to categorize experience than the Left does. Or does the fact that you’re PROVING HIS F*CKING POINT not mean anything to you? I believe that you fellas are talking just a *wee* bit much about how manly you are, as if you *really* had it, you wouldn’t need to be whiney about someone’s challenging your concept of it. My father is more manly than you fellas.
Also, I think if you actually *listened* to a liberal instead of regurgitating your leader’s vomit, then you *Might* actually learn something.
Oh, and Al-Mavira, do the names Foley, Haggard, Latham, O’Reilly, do you know what these names have in common? SEXUAL DEVIANCE! The first three are gay, and the last lurvs teh Faf3l31s! So, don’t feed the bull about this supposed healthy, normal conservatism. The first normal conservative I see will be a miracle.
See, you’re just proving our point, Baron.
Buddy boy, don’t assume I am some liberal just because I point out the *obvious*. You fellas’s manliness has about as much substance as a mirage, and that is all it will ever be for you. While you chase the long-sought, never-found dream of machismo, and the Democrats criticize you fellas, I just see both sides as a buch of arrogant arseholes who have no respect for each other.
Personally, I don’t give a damn about your obssession with Dave Neiwert’s being a stay-at-home father. He doesn’t fit your black-and-white beliefs about men, so you try to tear him down. I think that the fact that so many of the prominent Republicans HAVE been outed as queer says a *little* something about the Republican mentality. But, when you so-called MANLY MEN(TM) can’t take some guy who blogs when his daughter is napping, and still feel manly……
You ain’t got what you think you got. Period.
I personally despise American democracy, and the rot it has produced. Liberalism has become socialism, and conservatism is a pathetic rip-off of authoritarian Fascism. You conservatives treat everything you value as All-powerful, and yet it will fade and die if it so much as receives a challenge!
[…] Jeff Goldstein And now, Neiwert  who performatively redefines masculinity as that which talks incessantly about how it would never talk incessantly about masculinity (much less engage in any of its gendered conspicuous consumption). Those who refer to masculinity without the requisite disclaimers about how it is unmasculine to refer to masculinity can lay no claim to that real masculinity  which evidently comes from recognizing that real masculinity is seldom pointed out by really masculine people, unless they are pointing it out to show how pointing it out is unmasculine. […]
Methinks all the discussion of the masculine virtues has caused a disturbance below the Baron’s suspensor belt.
Baron – That is an excellent parody of the moonbat Left. Well done. The fact that the irony is so lost on you makes it that much more enjoyable. Douchnozzle.
Baron Harkonnen – thanks for proving that you didn’t really read a damn comment posted by anyone else, and only vomited out your opinion without regards to what people actually said. It makes it so much easier once I realize that you’re just being an annoying pissant, and not actually posting anything of value.
Now go run away. Please.
Don’t you all know that you are just proving Neiwart’s point ?!?!
That is a neat formulation that the Leftist come up with. If you argue against a point they make, you are proving their point. If you do not argue against it, it proves they were right. Either way, they find something that proves the validity (idiocy) of their point.
My father is more manly than you fellas.
Go on.
Why is it that men have this category called “not a real man,†whereas women do not?
But women do have categories. Quite a few, several of which are denigration of their worth as a female.
If you are asking why Marlena Dietrich could wear wingtips and a pinstripe suit and be super-hot to most men, whearas a man in purple chiffon is usually dismissed as a potential mate by the greater number of women, I have to confess it’s true that the masculine get-up magnifies the feminine features of the woman and associates them with male traits of a strong and less-contained sexual drive. ( I think the problem with the purple chiffon is that is has the same effect instead of the opposite one).
But make not mistake, there are lines of behaviour and appearance that a woman can cross and be considered unwomanly or less of a woman. There are simply more ways of describing such a woman.
Had to look up pudenda :(
Yeah. There was a scene like that in a sequel to “The Harrad Experiment”. The guys laid on the floor and the gals walked over them.
You can’t say you’re breezy. That totally negates the breezy!
[…] every time I see a link to one of these debates on masculinity/femininity the past few days it makes me want to kill […]
You ain’t got what you think you got. Period.
I would be able to treat this a little more seriously if you had adopted the name of, say, Duncan Idaho. The Baron had some strange proclivities that made him a poor example of humanity, much less manliness.
Who wants to tip the Baron off about my being a stay at home dad?
Well, that was the longest and most drawn-out “I know you are but what am I?” since the Ku Klux Klan devised an elaborate system of costumes and rituals and ceremonial titles to combat the Catholic Church.
Besides, we all know that there is but one true expression of masculinity: the Cock Slap.
Xtian Taliban? What is an Xtian? It can’t mean Christian, can it? Christian Taliban? (LOL) No, of course not that would be ridiculous and who would believe such nonsense.
C’mon the whole rant from Baron as well as the article from Neiwert was complete parody, a joke right? But then I have such a hard time trying to decifer when leftists are being serious.
[…] here is Jeff at Protein Wisdom completely demolishing the aforementioned […]
The Baron was a pederast. At least he wasn’t hypermasculine, though, because that would suck.
Speaking of assuming…who said you were a liberal?
Two, and counting.
Three. That’s enough. I suggest you go back, read again, and think about your preconceptions a bit. Your wrong-assumptions count is far too high for us to have any sort of discussion.
There’s no prude like a closet prude, is there?
Sure, if it’d do any good; he doesn’t seem all that quick on the uptake, though.
“You ain’t got what you think you got. Period.”
Last time I checked my 401K, that was true.
As for the rest of this argument, I’ll pass. High School was so long ago.
Looks like the Firedoglake trolls arrived, and didn’t bother to notice that I’ve preemptively taken away their COCKSLAP REFERENCE BOMB!
Preemptive attacks. A MAN’S gambit.
THIS IS SPARTA!
Ardsgaine took the words right out of my mouth.
The Baron was totally gay. Look at the way he leered at Sting in that codpiece.
“The Baron was totally gay. Look at the way he leered at Sting in that codpiece.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It was the way he got off on killing his playthings when he was done with them that put him in the lower ranks of mankind. A truly disgusting piece of work. Not much of a role model.
“The first three are gay, and the last lurvs teh Faf3l31s!”
Falafals? Me, too!
[…] on the universe by way of sheer “intellectual” will, here is his response to yesterday’s post on the […]
Three Things.
First off. The whole “real men don’t eat quiche” is nonsense. If it’s free, and somebody else cooked it, you eat it. That is manly behavior.
Second. The ultimate gauge of manly behavior is guy movies. Yes, I know I’ve watched Caddyshack a thousand times. Yes, I can probably quote the whole movie anyway. So what. I watched (Suffered through) your chick flick (Waiting to Exhale), You can sit down while I watch Caddyshack for the 1001st time.
Third, I’ve trained in the martial arts for years. The two toughest men that I’ve met had about two dozen black belts between them and eighty years worth of experience. And, one of them looked like Santa Claus, the other looked like Santa Claus’s older, fatter brother.
The same martial arts group had two women. One was a fifth-level in Tomiki-Style Aikido, the other was a nationally ranked combat pistol competitor.
When most people talk about manliness, they’re usually talking about toughness and the two are not related. Manliness is about acting like a guy, see previous comments. Toughness is individual and not restricted to gender or appearance.
You know who was tough? That Dallas Winston.
And Johnny Cade, too.
STAY GOLD, PONYBOY!
During the last U.S. Presidential election cycle, John Kerry said he would make the economy his “bitch.” A finer example of faux-masculinity has rarely been recorded. Similarly, GWB and John Kerry both attended Yale University. John Kerry scowled in his yearbook picture and GWB smiled comfortably.
I am glad the election turned out as it did.
Dave
[…] Manly Unmanly Men Acting Unmanly to Prove Manliness | Home | My first brief conversation with Michael […]
When has there ever been anything unmasculine about being a stay at home dad? It seems to me that attentive fatherhood is about as hypermasculine as it’s possible to get, being so closely tied to virility and genetic possessiveness. Come to think of it, those things are hyperfeminine as well, aren’t they.
In the end, masculine or feminine is all about the babies. It’s about what’s mine. It’s about watching those babies turn into strong young men and women. It’s about creation and procreation.
And I realize that we’re not supposed to do or say anything to make people who can’t or don’t have children feel bad about it, but the genetic basis is there for them as well. The ultimate definition of masculine and feminine is Father and Mother. It’s a whole lot of earthy biological sorts of things and differs between male and female only slightly.
I think that where it becomes unmasculine is when it’s all about not infringing on another person. Consider what might be termed hypermasculine pusuits… competitive sports, military service, and I hate to bring in that bad word “relationships” but aren’t those things about mutual interpersonal demands? It’s the team before the individual. It’s about belonging, ownership, and service. I know that people freak out every time I use the word ownership but I don’t know what other word works to explain *belonging*. If it’s an all male cohort or a family group there is ownership involved. Real men take responsibility for what belongs to them. The fact that some get it wrong doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use the words because the result of that is what we’ve got which is a culture that glorifies irresponsibility and selfish lives.
Remo, can’t say for Caddyshack but I only like guy movies. The Man Show is waaaaay over my limit, though.
Synova – I think that Neiwert took a page from the John Kerry playbook, ie. “How dare you question my patriotism” when nobody had actually done so. A pre-emptive denunciation, if you will.
I really am confused as to why any tough-guy neocons of fighting age are still here to banter about this nonsense.
When you’re in an existential war that may be going South do to a lack of troops, why are any of ya here jackin’ off on your keyboards about it? GET OVER THERE! They need ya!
Nothing like bringing the intellectual level of a debate up a notch by screaming chickenhawk at the other side.
brs – How many of the people here are – “tough guy neocons” and of fighting age, and also, do not have prior service experience?
Never mind, you will just vomit in the comments again …
brs – you can take your bullshit chickenhawk argument and shove it up your ass, just as soon as I remove my boot from said ass.
JD:
I’m not joining the Armed Forces until brs volunteers to be a
terroristinsurgentIraqi Minuteman human shield.Then, and only then, will I run as fast as my 51 year old overweight legs will carry me to sign up for combat duty.
Smiling all the way… chickendove!!!
Yo, brs–why haven’t you joined the Peace Corps yet? You believe in all this Peace stuff, doncha? You’re of Peace Corps-serving age, aintcha? Why haven’t you and all your anti-war pals joined up to help all those faraway little brown people you’re always yapping about?
You misunderstand, people. brs sees into your craven souls. Just accept it and move on.
Oh, but I DO read your comments. I see only a bunch of nincompoops who (like Mr. Goldstein here) live in glass houses and are throwing stones. Jeff G. is a stay-at-home dad, so I presume whatever problems emerge with Neiwert’s masculinity in being one happen to also fall on him. Now, I presume none of you have heard of Mr. O’Reilly’s predeliction for Falafels?
The reason I chose Baron Harkonnen as a username is because the Baron was a funny mofo, and that’s the only reason. I see the whole thing between your blog and Neiwert’s as a chickenhawk vs. chickendove (thanks BJTexas) match. My father is more manly because he actually WAS a father. From what I gather of you righties, the whole Fatherhood thing seems to have gone completely dead.
At least that’s what JAMES DOBSON says! Oh, and carl? Let me feed this fire some more, and say “Way to go, bub! You acted just as mature as I did!”
Besides, who says I’m NOT parodying the left? I decided to try their arguments out. Left a rather nasty taste in my mouth.
Did the Baron just call me a nincompoop? Here, on my own site?
Because that’s just gauche.
Besides, I’m more of a NINJAcompoop. I like to fling steel stars at the mirror.
And if the Baron is daft enough to try to tether James Dobson to this site, he’s clearly far too adrift in the sea of cartoon conservatives to do anything more with whatever life preserver I throw him than to bite it like a pillow while the rowdy hypermasculinist sharks have their way with him.
Evidently you ignored the final line of the post. I WAS PARODYING THE LEFT. Let me repeat one more time, for emphasis: I WAS PARODYING THE LEFT. Oh, and NINJAcompoop? WTF? That’s not even a good one. I was expecting a THIS IS SPARTAAAA joke, if anything.
He already did the Sparta thing, Baron. Though our host is fond of hitting the in-jokes on a regular basis, he generally doesn’t repeat himself in the space of a single comment thread.
And I think I speak for everyone when I say: if you’re going to parody the trolls, you need to put a succinct, clearly defined and defensible argument at the end of your comment, so that we can tell it isn’t really a troll. Trying to one-up them just isn’t possible any more.
Really. Well I never!
Quite the cad. Quite the cad.
Thank you, I try.
[…] The perfect person to deny that many conservative men act out of a sense of anxious masculinity is a…. […]
Baron Vlad: one word
DECAF!!!!! oh, and THE SPICE MUST FLOW!!!
Caffeine is good for your soul! Oh, and which spice, pepper, oregano, cinnamon, nutmeg, or garlic powder? Myself, I prefer the cinnamon, but hey!
Can’t tell one parody from another without your program.
Amanda Marcotte thinks about my cock more than I do.
Punkass Mark must really hate that.
I don’t understand how you can start from the premises that:
-Manly men don’t talk about how manly people are, they don’t have to.
-Confident people don’t talk about how confident they are, they don’t have to.
From there, you immediately start examining your own masculinity credentials in an effort to establish what they are. It’s laughable.
So, you’re reading all the comments and yet you’ve missed that no one s talking about Neiwart’s masculinity, but rather attacking his complete lack of intellectual heft.
You not smart, Baron. You need remedial reading, and perhaps a Xanax or 3.
Aha. Parody should be funny, you know. It’s one of them there signifiers.
†So much of leftist rhetoric is an attempt simply to shame opponents into compliance.. â€Â
What always amazes me about the Lefties is how absolutely skewed their self perception is, or, that they see no contradiction in using the epithet and accusation as both a sword and shield concurrently.
For instance, at this very moment, Marcotte and her band of Merry Mallrats is criticizing Jeff’s original post as an exhibition of “anxious masculinity,†something which she does quite often – supposedly because she read it in a book somewhere (of course in so doing going from zero to puerile in a single sentence) and she needs to prove to the world that she read a book. (Really Amanda? What with your obvious lack of free time?) In this case “anxious masculinity†or “faux masculinity†is a sword to strike at Jeff and his masculinity, to imply that it is a contrivance, although I am unsure of whether Jeff has exhibited uber-masculine behavior like mainlining Scotch and snorkeling among feeding Great Whites using a lit Coronas Gigantes for air and nothing but a barbed wire bow on his piece, like me.
At the same time, Marcotte associates with uber-masculine flannel-clad butch Lesbians and uterine-Americans who go out of their way to project the idea that they are manly Amazon women. (google ginmar, a personal intimate of Marcotte) The point being, when the Lesbians and Amazons go way past the point that we would all recognize as Tim Allenesque caricature, there is no mention of “anxious masculinity†and the chosen “social construct†shield is supposed to protect them from the same criticism, such being “sexist.â€Â
More likely, “anxious masculinity,†insofar as it is perceived by Marcotte and such, is a subversive act in defiance of the emasculating elements of the panopticon-like Leftist-feminist nanny-statism in which the current status quo requires a man to beg his wife or girlfriend in order to play cards with other men. Personally, I don’t play dat – I do what I do, and women can come and go. Mostly they come.
Of course, one of the implicit aims of Marcottian-style radfem was always to destroy the development of Classical virtues in men in the form of techne (gr.), or skill, gained by the practice of physical and mental disciplines. Many of the most hated “anxiously masculine†activities – football, shooting and hunting, card games, working on mechanical things, etc. – require the most studied attainment of techne, and thus virtue, which strikes at the very concept of male/female sex symmetry in that, when taken as a whole, women cannot compete with men in said fields. The best stratagem, therefore, is to define physical and mental disciplines in which women measure poorly as somehow vicious and contrary to virtue properly understood, and thus generally unworthy of men’s pursuit. Of course, as I have stated above, Lesbians and Amazons reserve the right to make fools of themselves in reverse-mocking masculinity as a subversive act.
Poor, confused Uri.
Takes his cues from Marcotte without even asking questions.
I think you’ll notice that I don’t make any effort whatsoever to examine my own “masculinity credentials” in the post. Instead, I examine the inane logic used by Neiwert to do so.
But I’ll give you a pass, seeing as how you found your way over here from Pandagon.
Doubly so, because all the borderline sentient creatures who find their way here from Marcotte’s hate pit at least have the good sense not to leave comments that will only make them look foolish.
You must be one of those birds whose beak is not particularly sharp.
Alec —
That’s the trick, isn’t it — to frame the very questioning of their absurd arguments as proof of the arguments’ validity.
It’s so very circular that it simply calls out for pi.
Okay, so where exactly does Neiwert do this? I’ve been reading his column for a good long time and I can’t think of any instance in which he attitudinizes as you claim he does. If you can come up with a quote, a time, and a date, I will retire shamefaced from the field. Until then I shall persist in my belief that you are Just Making Stuff Up.
I’ve never known Neiwert The Blogster to parade either masculinity or the lack of it. He seems not to be demonstrative that way. OTOH, we all know how George Bush dressed for his “Mission Accomplished” day at the prom. And I, for my part, shall persist in my belief that a man who shows up in a jumpsuit, a harness, and a codpiece is trying too hard. (BTW, as you may be aware, I’m not the only person who thinks so.)
Also BTW…argument from intimidation is by no means a tactic exclusive to the left. It’s a time-honored tactic of political hucksters of all stripes (consequently it’s no miracle that Ayn Rand understood it pretty well). But a fairly decent case could be made that this is a trick of which righties these days are particularly fond, and that they at present make a more extensive use of it than lefties do. As in: if you think the President’s an idiot you’re a traitor, if you think the President’s unethical you hate America, if you’re willing to vote for a Democrat you’re asking for another 9/11, et cætera.
Oh, and as for hoping that the Universe will shift in your favor insofar as you exhibit the proper behaviors—what the heck else do any of us do with our lives? Why else do we dress up in a certain way for dates, dress up in another certain way for job interviews, express toward our social superiors a respect which we don’t always feel, and so forth? Are these just futile rituals doggedly engaged in despite their futility, or do most of us share a sly notion that a discrete choice from the Menu Of Approved Behaviors may indeed work to render life more pleasant? Hunh?
Yeah, that sounds like most conservatives.
At least, the ones who haunt your dreams like so many Rovian ghosts, et cætera.
I’ve given at least four specific examples here of a self-avowed leftist (Caric and Neiwert, twice each) using this precise kind of argument in an effort to redefine terminology to fit a worldview.
You counter with the claim that straw men of your imaginings are equally as given to such rhetorical maneuverings. Convenient, that.
Still, for the record, the bit you quote wasn’t written by me, so I’m not sure exactly who you are addressing here.
But I’ll pass your concerns along to Ric Locke, the author of the excerpted bits.
Meantime, here’s another writer who thinks Neiwert tends to argue backwards. And he makes the case step by step.
bekabot – While you are at it, you can persist in your belief that you do a good Judy Garland. No, really, you nailed it.
I think if you’re going to fly a jet, a nice J Crew sweater vest and a pair of non-pleated cotton twill slacks are the way to go.
Maybe with a Timberland boot.
That way, you’ll be saying, “See? I don’t need to dress in any cartoon masculine way to really BE comfortable with my masculinity!”
Of course, you might also freeze your ignorant raisins off, but what the hell — you’ve made a SOCIAL STATEMENT!
Jeff – Why is it that the leftists insist with arguing with their internalized charicatures of their political opponents, rather than the actual people?
Manliness is different than plain old guyness, if you ask me. The guyness is a more important quality generally speaking. Sometimes you want the manliness thing, situationally. But for most things you just want one of those “he’s a good guy” people. For the rest of it, well, all I can say is that it’s pretty easy to overthink it.
What a perfectly “guy” thing to say.
That’s a compliment, as you well know.
“Alec –
That’s the trick, isn’t it  to frame the very questioning of their absurd arguments as proof of the arguments’ validity.
It’s so very circular that it simply calls out for pi.”
Of course, and it is a hangover from the Uncle Joe days. Question the existence of a conspiracy spanning the course of human history with the sinister purpose of getting women to “straigten up the place a little” (i.e. the Patriarchy) – and you must be a charter member, with valet privileges. If you can’t see the purple monster in the room, you are the purple monster in the room. I guess none of the gynobot elite has ever seen The Manchurian Candidate (the good one, with Mr. S) and as such can’t figure out why this particular line of attack gets recognized at 300 meters and called out every time.
It may be a homage to what Chesterton would call the Illuminating Paradox, but, of course, being rather small minds, they posit that every paradox is illuminating because paradoxes tend to sound profound until they are proven to be utterly incorrect. Additionally, in the context of “anxious masculinity,†there is the whiff of an accusation that “thou doth protest too much†– meaning that the target of the argument is really a homosexual, which is a great thing to be – unless you run afoul of a Leftist for some reason. Then it sucks.
After I heard of the Donohue versus Marcotte fiasco, I sought out her web presence and found the bizarre collection of miscellaneous weirdos that is pandagon. In addition (and back on topic) I also found an article by the divine Miss M stating – and I shit you not – that meat eating, and the Burger King “I am man†commercial in particular is an exercise in patriarchal “anxious masculinity.†(The article is now impossible to find) Of course, being Marcotte, the subtext, and hence the humor – viz, that the men aren’t “allowed†to eat whatever they damn well please as an expression of “bodily autonomy†because they are each subject to an authoritarian female – entirely escaped her. I asked whether eating a “portabella burger†with burger fixins’ is itself faux masculinity, or faux faux masculinity. I am still waiting for the response, and have been summarily banned.
It is then that I knew that I had to follow Marcotte down the rabbit hole a bit and revisit pandagon from time to time in order to witness the eventual and inevitable self immolation. (and it is coming, of this I am sure) Someone that determined to remain disabused of her pernicious fantasies will meet a horrible and premature end in one form or another – the Edwards matter was a symptom, not the illness.
Riffing more on Amanda “the penis whisperer†Marcotte, it is rather obvious to the casual observer that her exaggerated use of expletives and need to share that she “fucks†guys a lot is an anxious aping of imagined hypermale locker room cum Sailors-on-shore-leave talk. Much the same with her position that liberals get all teh good sex, which of course, really means that liberals get all the mutually androgynous, greasy, unkempt, pot bellied, pubic hair muffin sex that doesn’t interest anyone else.
[…] that chain of reasoning is too sophisticated for some right-wing bloggers, since the next day both Jeff Goldstein and Jules Crittenden both weighed in with attacks on Neiwert’s musings. Crittenden’s […]
Alec – That was a masterpiece, if there ever was one. Kudos.
We shouldn’t forget the “right-wingers just don’t get the nuance of the argument” argument, either.
Another convenient barrier the self-deluded throw up to keep their insular and intellectually illiberal worldview safe from the prying eyes of the proles they presume themselves uncommonly fit to speak for.
Jeff – I did not get the nuance in Neiwert’s article. I found tortured logic and “I am masculine, dammit”, but not much nuance. Actually, the Left’s response to this has been surprisingly black and white, a trait they decry when done by their ideological betters.
“On my suggestion, my husband gave a box of these to his administrative assistant on administrative assistant’s day and actually got a hug from her for it. I’m not sure I should be suggesting my husband buy other women treats that result in physical contact.”
OT, but I just love how we call them Administrative Assistants instead of, you know, paying them more or respecting their profession.
“Hey Phil, my piece of ass wage slave wants more money.”
“No shit! Mine too! What’re we gonna do?”
“I know, let’s give them a holiday where we buy them some shitty $3 flowers and call them Administrative Assistants.”
“That’ll shut them up! Girls like pretty things right? And if we pay them more they’ll just spend the money on lunch and get all fat and unappealing.”
“Yup… Golf later?”
“Sure.”
How come my posts won’t post?
Ah, what’s the use, it’s a troll anyway, and he probably won’t be back.
On the off-chance this posts, though, this is a pervasive, but completely inaccurate, meme:
A little Googling will get you George W. Bush walking along with a couple of Naval Flight Officers in gear that’s pretty much identical to his, meaning they ALL WEAR CODPIECES! No, I meant so say that they all are wearing harnesses that tend to cinch around their groin, a bit like a sit harness for climbing.
Or, more likely (given the audience) this will be taken as evidence that not only is George wearing a codpiece, but that he’s forcing others to wear codpieces in his presence.
Go now, in any case, and stalk someone else’s pudendum.
I love how Marcotte and the Mallrats are making a seamless transition from “men sometimes cry during or after hand to hand combat when their friends die” to “being mounted by other men” and “attempting to breastfeed out of sympathy” on the masculinity as a pure social construct theme.
Of course, the ideological blinders preclude them from seeing that it is really, really not masculine to cry when you simply don’t get your way, to win an argument, or to manipulate others out of guilt or to appeal to their masculine nature in order to achieve some end. You know, the sorts of things that get people like me to drop some change at Tiffany’s and say “I’m so sorry,” for what – I do not really know.
By the time stamps this thread appears to be winding down. I suppose this means that bekabot and Associates (Pty., Ltd.) will assume I’m retiring from the field. Assume as you like.
The one thing I will do before heading out to take care of the critters is to echo Slartibartfast: the outfit George Bush chose on the occasion mentioned is the ordinary working clothes of a medium-high-status member of the audience he was addressing, and he is entitled to wear it as a member in good standing (emeritus) of that class. Every article he wore is absolutely practical for the activities and tasks of that particular class, and has been developed and refined over decades by thousands of workers in that field; any element of stylishness associated with it comes from respect and admiration for the strivers that carries over to the characteristic costume. That includes the “codpiece”. If you doubt its utility, I urge you to experience three gees of deceleration without one while wearing a five-point harness. Even if you’re female.
There is also an element of class-consciousness in the whole exercise which I assure you the military people present found about as subtle as a brick to the head, but which probably cannot be explained in any terms that a bekabot, Marcotte, or Neiwert could understand. (Hint: VIPs in sharp suits come aboard by helicopter.) I’ve seen criticisms of what Bush said on that occasion which I took as valid, even when I disagreed with them; and of course there is a perfectly pertinent, if mistaken, line of thought that the event should not have taken place at all. But criticizing Bush on the grounds that he dressed somehow inappropriately totally fails to reach its mark because it reveals in the critic not just a profound lack of understanding of the military, but a shallow, jejeune, and bigoted stereotype that replaces such understanding. An insult should be designed to wound. If you launch your missiles without any clue as to where the vulnerable points of the target are, you can’t expect to do much damage.
Regards,
Ric
Edit to add: it is really, really not masculine for a bunch of misfits to jawjack and name call on a site where no one can respond in kind. It is also really, really not masculine to ban and bunny everyone who whoops your ass handily with teh words, as if it never really happened.
“…which of course, really means that liberals get all the mutually androgynous, greasy, unkempt, pot bellied, pubic hair muffin sex that doesn’t interest anyone else”.
And conservatives get all the sex they want with the Ann Coulters and Karl Roves.
I already have all the sex I want with Ann Coulter, so there’s not much bonus in it for me.
Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on me.
bekabot has no Associates, but bekabot also has not got very much time, and intends to eat quickly and leave.
Yes, and he still looked like an idiot, because
As you point out, Bush was wearing an outfit adapted to a specific set of tasks. His sartorial downfall proceeded from the fact that these were tasks which he had in no wise performed, and that the get-up he’d adopted was one he’d spent his college years electing not to wear. See, this is the point at which I find myself impelled to interject gently that Bush isn’t really a fighter pilot. He just took it into his head to play one on TV. Like many of the plans Bush has hatched or been a party to, this was a scheme that turned out not to be an unrivalled success.
II see that you use the word “costume” in considered preference to its many synonyms; this clues me in that you are aware of what was really going on. You’re right, Bush was wearing a costume, and the reason the costume looked so fugatrocious on him, the reason why it failed to achieve “stylishness”, was that he hadn’t the presence or the history to pull it off. It was inappropriate, not only because he was scarcely the man to wear it, but because it had absolutely nothing to do with anything which as actually happening on that day. You said it yourself: the President could have come in by helicopter and sported a nice suit, that fact that he didn’t, the fact that somehow he wanted to convince his audience that he spends his life operating at three G’s of deceleration, when obviously he doesn’t, constitutes a statement of its own, a statement which was then and is still implicitly false.
And the bekabot returns, with the expressed desire to re-write history right in front of our faces.
Uh, it’s a flight suit, and he’d just gotten out of the co-pilot’s seat of an S-3B Viking. And it’s a similar sort of suit to the one he donned when he got out of college. BTW, you don’t elect not to wear it, you earn the right to wear it.
And this is the part where I point out that, yeah, he really is a fighter pilot. F-102 to be specific.
Deleting my comments now? You can refer to me as “barely sentient” and “one of those birds whose beak is not particularly sharp” but I can’t reply?
Comment by Jeff G. on 8/21 @ 4:55 pm #
bla bla bla
Let’s get a few things straight.
– Before reading your reply in which you incorrectly assumed I found your page via Pandagon, I had never seen nor heard of that site.
– I should have been more specific in my previous post. I was using a general you (y’all), that is to say, the general stream of comments in this thread. I did not realize that an author who block quotes eleven paragraphs of other people’s writing still assumes that everyone is responding to him alone.
– “Isaac and Rachel” reads like a high school freshman trying to butcher Milan Kundera.
In the interest of clariy,
You summarize your viewpoint with:
real masculinity is seldom pointed out by really masculine people, unless they are pointing it out to show how pointing it out is unmasculine.
Which leads to comments like this:
– I’m 55, I know my strengths and weaknesses. I am more masculine than some, less than others.
– Yeah, whatever. I can kick both their asses.
– The fact that I own guns has less connection to my masculinity than the fact that my wee wifey owned one before I met her has to do with her femininity.
– Second. The ultimate gauge of manly behavior is guy movies. Yes, I know I’ve watched Caddyshack a thousand times. Yes, I can probably quote the whole movie anyway. So what. I watched (Suffered through) your chick flick (Waiting to Exhale), You can sit down while I watch Caddyshack for the 1001st time.
– The only thing that has anything to do with my masculinity is that I’ve been a pretty good husband for nearly thirty five years, and fathered and raised a son I could be proud of.
It’s laughable.
I realize this is all bloviating on an extremely minor website, but the most devastating rebuttal to Neiwert’s accusation would have been to simply ignore him.
Wow. Uri can link to comments! Yippee. All of that brainpower, and still he cannot wrap his head around the central point.
Wow. Uri can link to comments! Yippee.
I like to be explicit when general statements are grossly misinterpreted.
All of that brainpower
Dogged persistence would be more accurate. The signal-to-noise ratio is so low here that I am amazed people even bother to finish their sentences with a period.
still he cannot wrap his head around the central point.
Which is? I was simply commenting on other people’s responses to the initial post.
Don’t flatter yourself, uri. My reCaptcha system is giving socket errors, so I disabled it. Consequently, I’m being flooded with spam. If your post didn’t appear or was deleted, it’s possible it got caught in one of the filters. In fact, looking at the number of links in your post leads me to believe that’s probably the case.
Still, if I deleted it while removing the spam, it wasn’t to silence you. Just didn’t recognize the name. You are a casualty of Asian Ass Fucking Teens HOT HOT HOT. As have others before you been — even regulars.
Now that I’m reading your comment for the first time, though, I’m happy to reply.
First, if it is just a coincidence you arrived after Amanda Panda sent out her trolls, then I apologize for the error.
Second, for me to buy the you/y’all distinction you’re now claiming, I’d have to believe that you (meaning, you know, “uri”, and not all potentiall uri-esque commenters who may one day appear here) were willing to claim that the 111 or so comments before yours all started from the central premise you outline, and that they all reach the same general conclusions you claim they all readh. Which, if you were hoping to differentiate those 111 comments, reduced to a single generalization, from the post itself — which is what comments generally address — you would have done better to make yourself clear. Then I could have just pointed out the ridiculousness of your overgeneralization, connected it to the kind of lazy mind who proffers such observations, and moved on.
As for my blockquoting — that particular convention is used to differentiate the words of someone else from one’s own. As Ric’s comments, which I linked to in their original context, were the PRECISE OCCASION for the post, I find it baffling that you seem taken aback by my having quoted them at length. Too much for you to work through?
And really, why bring up a piece of short fiction I wrote? — much less in so ludicrous a formulation. I mean, why would a high school freshman try to butcher Kundera?
Between the feebleness of your criticisms and your inability to signal the proper pronoun referent to an experienced reader, I don’t put much stock in your literary judgment, sad to say. And for what it’s worth, I’ve been published enough to sustain confidence in my abilities as a fiction writer. (In fact, that particular piece has been taught in classes on prose poetry).
Still, had I know you’d be reading “Isaac and Rachel,” I’d have included illustrations, and placed the dialog in cartoon bubbles.
Finally, you write:
Uh, actually, no, I don’t. Instead, that’s how I have paraphrased Neiwert’s ridiculous argument.
You haven’t even the basic skills necessary to understand what the post is saying, and yet you have the temerity to jump in with arguments that get my point completely backwards? Typical of a certain generation of students who have been taught to believe that their passion is enough to justify their outrage — though they don’t have any of the skills necessary to understand what it is they’re talking about.
Thus, the liberal left.
But in the interests of ACTUAL clarity? All I see, now that I’ve read your comment, is a fucking moron who missed the point, and is willing to keep showing up to dig himself deeper in a hole.
The fact that you paused to take a shot at my fiction just marks you as a prick as petty as he is impotent.
i.
FFine. When did Bush earn that right? Where’s his record of service? Supposedly he trained as a pilot, sure, but did he ever put that training to use? Does anybody even remember training with him? Does anybody have any pictures of GWB donning a flight suit immediately after matriculating outta Yale? If so, are they to be found on the net, and where can I see them? And, incidentally, am I supposed to believe that GWB, descending toward the deck of the Abraham Lincoln at three G’s of deceleration, happened providentially to notice that there was an unused flightsuit at hand, whereupon he promptly climbed into it? If so, I must tell you that this is not a story I buy. I believe that the whole event was more scripted and orchestrated than that, and I also believe, as you now must no doubt realize, that the whole event was orchestrated around a false note.
“Fine. When did Bush earn that right? Where’s his record of service? Supposedly he trained as a pilot, sure, but did he ever put that training to use?”
If I am correct, the flight suit is not itself a military uniform in the sense that class A dress blues would be – it is more of a utility thing. In other words, what else would you expect him to wear – or, what would appropriate dress be in that circumstance?
Stop sucking so badly. You are causing a meteorological disturbance.
The fact that you paused to take a shot at my fiction just marks you as a prick as petty as he is impotent.
I needed another laugh, and I just got it.
[…] to Neiwert’s post about staying home and raising his daughter, Jeff Goldstein sets about to try and prove his manliness. It is so twisted in its logic as to be almost […]
I had a papoosa for lunch. It’s some kind of El Salvadoran peasant food, and they served it with a side of some kimchiesque spicy stuff. It sucked basically, but it’s fun to try new things. Well not like fun fun, but whatever. The lady that made it is guest-hosting the lunch counter while the regular girl is on vacation. I told her that the papoosas were very good, and that they had made me wish I had tried her El Salvadoran chicken special yesterday.
Uri —
Cackling to yourself is not the same as enjoying a laugh. It’s a sign you need pills.
bekabot —
From the uberconservative Seattle Post Intelligencer:
Seems to me if you’re coming in on that kind of plane making that kind of landing, wearing the appropriate gear is more practical than symbolic.
You can argue that his taking a fighter jet out there is symbolic, but it’s silly to pretend that wearing the requisite gear signifies anything other than that he chose to fly in the way he did.
And yes, he flew the plane.
Funny how the Navy crewman don’t believe he was acting like a phony. I mean, this wasn’t exactly Dukakis in a tank with a ridiculous helmet sitting atop his coif.
Ok, you’re maybe not a complete dimwit, just ignorant. A flight suit is what you wear aboard a military aircraft, whether you’re a pilot or not. Hell, whether you’ve served or not. There may be exceptions to the rule, but I’d guess that carrier-landing aircraft aren’t one of those exceptions.
I’ve done some work as a defense contractor aboard military helicopters, and had to wear a flight suit and steel-toed boots just to get in the thing. It’s not optional; it’s the rules. No codpiece, though.
I’m starting to think bekabot was just putting us on. Is it really possible that anyone can still be getting it that wrong, this many years after the fact?
Labored, tedious, inaccurate, barely coherent, and even worse–boring.
That’s one of your big rhetorical tricks, isn’t it, Ric? Call everything that you don’t agree “labored” and “boring” and “barely coherent.”
Your offhanded dismissiveness, though, doesn’t fool me: it’s mannered, and its the kind of affectation that I’ve met with a billion times from phony intellectuals like you.
Thing is, you don’t get to grade me. So save the posturing and embrace your ubiquitously question begging.
As an aside, I should think it was obvious that the convolution (the “barely coherent” bit), with respect to pinning down Neiwert’s argument (it was his, wasn’t it? Or do you guys borrow from each liberally?), was quite intentional, and done both humorously and to make a point — namely, that the contortions such arguments require are risible, particularly when it is easier to just get right to the nut: “masculine” is what you and Neiwert and people who offer several thousand word treatises on the subject say it is; just as “racism” is what you and Neiwert say it is.
Miraculously, it always happens that it’s the “conservatives” who are engaging in faux-masculinity, and the conservatives who are working hard to beard their racism.
Nothing labored about that, right? — though I’ll grant you, it certainly is tedious watching people of your anti-intellectual ilk try to pawn it off as a reputable bit of academic consideration.
Personally I think tedious is worse than boring.
Was Professor Caric describing his own writing style?
meh
I said in the updated post but I am gonna say again, am I the only one that thinks Ric Caric sounds like Mrs. Drysdale?
I’m sorry, Patsy, I’m with Dr, Ric on this one. Further more I agree with him. I thought and found it was tedious AND boring. Not to mention it was dull and repeatitive. Aslo, incomprehensible and hard to understand what you were even saying.
Serously, I could not comprehense it for the life of me.
I will give you it was coherent. But just barely.
(In the interest of full disclaimer: I am VERY SLIGHTLY gay. Like 1 on the gay scale of numbers. Generally, Witheld loves the ladies)
(But admittingly, I do have weakness for Frodo/Sam slash fiction. Check out my serialize novel in progress SECRET CUDDLES IN THE DARK LORD’S REALM. If you liked the earlier chapters “Hobbits Are Tricksy” and “She Said, She Said, Shelob,” and “Another Kind of Sting,” I think your gonna love the latest “A Near Faramir Is Nothing to Fear,” and “A Porking of Orcs.”
Well, let’s see…what did I learn yesterday. Oh yes…I learned that a flightsuit is a semi-sacerdotal form of attire, one that “you earn the right to wear”, except that, oops, wait a minute, a flightsuit is just what you wear on board a military plane, whether or not you yourself were ever in the Service. Hmmm. (Interesting semi-admission that GWB doesn’t really have a military past, though I suppose you could kind of count his stint as Commander-in-Chief.) I also learned that, although a man who trained as an accountant but who earns his living as an orthodontist is generally characterized as an orthodontist and not an accountant, a politico who once trained as a pilot, but who has no record of service as a pilot, is somehow an “aviator” (please don’t tell me that it’s the Seattle P-I which identified him as such; you quoted them for a reason). Last of all, I learned that GWB dressed up as Top Gun because it was the practical thing to do, even though a less practical man might have tamed the Halloween trick-or-treater lurking within, put on a nice suit, flown in on a whirlybird, and kept himself from playing the fool.
All in all, an instructive session. Many thanks.
Somehow I don’t think you learned anything. Bush trained as a pilot, and according to his TANG commanders was a good one.
And I quoted the Seattle PI because it was the first newspaper account that I found when I did a quick Google search. Seems the press wasn’t much into the “how dare he wear a flight suit aboard a jet that he actually FLEW” kick that you are — at least, not at the time.
But go ahead and have the last word if you must. We’re not really trying to instruct you so much as get the facts laid out for the record.
You’re just useful as a catalyst. We know we haven’t a chance in hell of swaying you, because what you believe is an article of faith.
You don’t earn your flight suit, you earn your wings.
But why are we bothering bekabot with information? Information only seems to be useful if it fits with what bekabot thinks it already knows, much of which, it appears, is incorrect.
[…] I was a member of the nutroots, I would call such rhetoric hypermasculinist — an attempt to compensate for something. But I don’t roll that way. Besides, […]
[…] new book, Liberal Fascism, has come under a concentrated attack from David Neiwert, last seen here arguing to redefine masculinity along essentially partisan political lines (though naturally, and […]
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[…] Manly Unmanly Men Acting Unmanly to Prove Manliness – Dan did a fine job yesterday pointing up the nearly surreal blinkeredness of David Neiwert’s bizarre attempt to play Dr Phil to the blogosphere’s troubled hypermasculinist “conservatives” — which Neiwert does in a strained argument for … Amaya, commercial embroidery machine, embroidery, Industrial, Machine, Melco, Sew […]