In the unlikely event some of you might still be interested in David Neiwert’s increasingly embarrassing attempts to foist his own personal view of “masculinity” on the universe by way of sheer “intellectual” will, here is his response to yesterday’s post on the subject.
For those interested only in the abridged version of Neiwert’s rejoinder, here’s Slart in the comments, offering a concise summary:
All of this is just proving my point, hypermasculine racists!
Which, I suppose, means I’ll have to reformulate my original paraphrase of Neiwert’s doughy drivel, which began thus —
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
— but which now must account for yet another meta-layer of Neiwertian “proof,” and so is reborn thus:
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, and makes those who point out that they’ve pointed out a pointing out in order to point out a masculinity that is decidedly unmasculine in its masculinity, even more unmasculine — the proof being that they felt the need to point out such a pointing out, which is by any objective standard the kind of pointing out that points out the pointing out Neiwert originally pointed to to point out how that pointing out serves as a pointer to faux-masculinity in the first place.
Which, in turn, makes him more masculine for the effort. Q.E.D.
Or, if you prefer something a bit more streamlined, here’s JD, summing up the rhetorical maneuvering of such a response:
That is a neat formulation that [Neiwert comes] 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.
Sure. Though one wishes that Neiwert would just cut out all the intervening verbiage and just come right out and make the claim that masculinity is precisely what he says it is — and the metric for determining it has everything to do with the political identity of the person whose masculinity is under consideration.
Because it is clear from Neiwert’s arguments that behaviors themselves hold no intrinisic gendered values, meaning that all Neiwert has to appeal to when separating out the truly masculine from the faux-
masculinist compensators, hypermasculist geeks, and closeted homosexuals, is his prior (applied) belief that those of a certain political disposition are given to compensating or dissembling, while those who hold “competing” ideological views — which, surprise! happen to match the ones he himself holds — are alone capable of transparent gender expression.And so once again, the circle
completesgets the square.79 Replies to “Manwars update”
Steve McQueen. That is all.
preemptive cockslap reference here.
COCKSLAP!
Thank you, Jeff. I do believe that is only the second time I have ever been credited for having a rational thought!
Mushroom bruise to the forehead, just for good measure.
I particularly like that any counter-argument, by it’s very existence, proves his point. Not original, but a nice touch.
Neiwert’s making me so mad I could just stamp my feet and scream!
I don’t give a shit what this nitwit thinks. Does that make me masculine? And by asking, so I render my original point moot? And by rendering that point moot, does that make me unmasculine? This sort of intellectual tail-chasing (or, if you prefer, pseudo-intellectual masturbation) strikes me a definitely unmasculine. As opposed, say, to having sex with my wife, which is very masculine. And even if it’s not, I’m getting laid, so who CARES.
Neiwert has taken his balls and gone home, it would seem.
Ahem, indeed.
One of the other trolls, Charlie Wilson, trotted out a similar argument in the Matt Sanchez thread. He would make a series of lies and distortions, and if you corrected him or in any way responded, that was proof of how invested you were in the GAY PORN COCK OF LIES.
Yeah, but Jeff doesn’t have the picture of a killer whale’s dorsal fin rising like a giant penis from the dark blue waters, like David’s blog does. Take that, Jeff! That must mean something, right?
I just got beat up by a couple of high-school girls. But at least I’m masculine enough to admit it.
Geez, it’s not even 10:00 am here on the west coast and already I’ve got a big freakin headache from all this “… he pointed out by their pointing out what has been pointed out before they pointed out the pointing out of the items that have been pointed out while they point out their pointing out…”.. This is as bad as that stupid exercise (that I’ve pointed out previously) in parsing the buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo sentence.
Let’s move on to something more interesting.. You have Inland Empire and had a couple days to check it out… so what do you make of it..? My review, in short is: WTF? I love Lynch movies.. at least his art projects.. Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and such.. I like the inter-cut story lines, the awkward silences, the weird character actors with the strange faces, the white noise, bass groans and throbbing sounds.. I especially love the seemingly pointless conversations thrown in for no apparent reason.. (I have a friend that lives in Pomona. She has a pet monkey..).. But after watching for three hours (that admittedly filled the senses) I was left going “so when’s Frank Booth going to come in and tie this all together?” Is a hint of a plot too much to ask for?
Really, WTF?
Actually, I haven’t gotten it yet. Circuit City and Target weren’t carrying it.
It’s on its way from Amazon.
But if it helps, the very fact that I ordered an “arty” movie as a conservative means that I am invested in appearing “arty” — or, if you prefer, “liberal” — which in turn suggests that I agree with Neiwert that the true path to masculinity is taking strides to make sure that traditional notions of masculinity be undercut, and that I embrace that undercutting.
I said GOOD DAY, sir!
(On the other hand, is there any lesbo action in this one? Because if so, I’ve got myself covered on the right, as well. Rooowwwrrr.
Otherwise, I’m probably going to have to rent Wild Hogs. For balance.)
So – who’s this Neiwert faggot again?
Oh geeze – that was insensetive of me, wasn’t it?
I’ll have to work on that. Sometime.
I do gotta ask: Why are there no men in Hollywood in the mold of all the guys who played the “allied” prisoners in The Great Escape? I mean, every single one, including Pleasance, was all man, even if in different ways. Bronson, McQueen, Garner, Coburn, etc. And even a gay (coded) guy!
Now we have what? Babyface Caprio, Doofus Damon, and a bunch of people I don’t even care enough about to remember their names.
Although I gotta say, Lynch does have a lot of masculine men in his works…
“I just got beat up by a couple of high-school girls. But at least I’m masculine enough to admit it.”
So umm….how much did they charge?
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
Sorry, no real man would give it anywhere near this much thought. Neiwart is clearly a girly man trying hard to compensate.
Is italics masculine, or girly?
I do not know if italics are girly, or a product of teh gay, but I always feel a bit embarassed after having used them.
Um, as far as I’m concerned, masculinity can be summed up in two words:
Y chromosome
I have no idea why it needs to go beyond that.
Let’s all get epicene and be done with it, mkay?
dicentra – That is an interesting point, one that I had not considered during the course of this discussion. That is likely due to the fact that the Leftist writing in question was so fucking convoluted that it appears to have been designed to reduce your IQ as you read it.
I think there is more to the concept of masculinity than the chromosome too. Possession of the penis does not make one masculine.
I’m not trying to compensate.
Really. I’m not.
The Y chromosome makes one male. To be differentiated from female. And, I guess, hermaphrodite.
The rest is all bullshit, and turns on perceptions that are culturally formulated and adopted. Leftists like Neiwert are far more interested in the topic because they are far more interested in deconstructing the existing perceptions and replacing them, by rhetorical fiat, with newly-minted cultural formulations.
And they do this, more than likely, because they (ironically) buy into the concepts of “masculinity” and “femininity” to begin with, such that they can’t stand being seen as standing on the “wrong” side of the cultural dividing line.
I find that funny, but then, I liked Benny Hill, too.
OK, so if I want to be authentically masculine, I can either do my best Ed Begley impersonation or wear a dress? And not mention it, presumably.
I think I’ll just keep belching, scratching my nuts, and being entirely disinterested in whatever remote moonbat psychoanalysis might come my way.
I don’t know you, but it sounds like you succeeded with the last part….
Hey, how does he know we’re all hypermasculine racists? Some of us might just be hyper-racist masculinists. Gosh golly, that kind of stereotyping is downright hurtful. I think I need to cry for a moment… Or maybe give Dave some hearty Viking Love, one or the other.
Oh for the love of… so I went and *read* the original “I’m a manly man” response to an obvious misreading of something Dr. Helen said (which wasn’t that the unmanly man did dishes and watched children but that he felt *guilty* about himself and was doing those things out of guilty feelings for simply being a man).
I’m sure the fellow is plenty manly as are all those well loved conservative men who stay home with their children. Which means that everyone is absolutely correct in assuming that the *problem* as it were is that he assumes things about conservatives that aren’t the least bit true… which explains how he could so badly misread Dr. Helen and go off on a quite unobjectionable thingy about taking care of children and think that he was rebutting her.
Not that stay-at-home Dads don’t get certain sorts of reactions. As a homeschooler I know quite a few men who take that role and they do get strange looks. A bit in the same way that my son was asked to leave the children’s section of the library. Even thinking of that makes me angry and I’ll say this to Neiwert and no mistake about it… it’s not conservatives who insist on viewing men as predators!
It’s not conservatives who insist that men ought to feel guilty for being men, for being violent, for being predators. It’s not about doing the dishes or watching the baby it’s about the *guilt* you a**hole. It’s about my having to explain to my son that he’s automatically not trusted around children just because he’s male. That *our culture* will not allow him the role of protector to those smaller and weaker than himself.
Dr. Helen was talking about how men are expected to constantly apologize in words and in actions every moment of their lives for the sin of having a penis.
And if Neiwert wants to explain to me how I’m wrong in that cultural observation, he can start by explaining to me why my son was expelled from the children’s section of the library.
Neiwert could never be Count Cockula.
[…] has written at length over at the Mothership about David Neiwert’s definitions of […]
Niewert is classic for deciding what other people think for them, and what they’re “really saying,” and other conspiracy-theory type bullshit. He does it constantly. I remember well when he wrote a lengthy bullshit essay about how people on the right were engaging in Nazi/Fascist type argumentation when a cartoon showing an American troop being stabbed in the back got some moderate approval. Ridiculously paranoid projection and LaRouche-style conspiracy theorizing are all that drives the man.
This is a really, genuinely, stupid topic. Who the hell really cares about being manly anyway? It’s about on par with people being concerned about what is and isn’t mature. To quote someone who said it better than I:
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
* “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” (1952) – CS Lewis
I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Joseph. Masculine is never used as a term of approval.
Wait, did you just call David Neiwert a pussy?
I agree with Jeff that the Y chromosone makes one a male. But that just gets you in the door. It is a long journey from being a male to being a man, and I think that our culture has denigrated the idea of being a man to the extent that we’re not even sure ourselves just what is meant when someone says, “He’s a good man.”
At the risk of waxing too “Hemingwayesque,” I have always thought that being a man was comprised mostly of correct action, a set of behaviors.
Keep your word.
Protect your family.
Stand up for those who are weaker.
Look someone in the eye when you’re talking to them.
Shake hands firmly.
Take care of your debts.
And support the mission in Iraq.
(Just felt like swatting a hornet’s nest today)
“(Just felt like swatting a hornet’s nest today)”
Then you have failed. Instead you made yourself look a bit foolish.
GOOD DAY to you, Sir!
Seriously, Major John, I’m getting so bored with the incessant amateur psychoanalysis over there on the “hypermasculinity” issue that I would love to see a major blogger acrually come out and give the Leftys what they want: a straightforward shame-culture kind of argument linking support for the Iraq mission with masculine identity. For once the Leftys could drive themselves into a tizzy-fit over what someone actually wrote, instead of having to assign intent.
Um, Jeff, not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s not “circle completes the square.” The expression is, “Circle gets the square.”
What? Charles Nelson Reilly was butch!
For some reason, there’s a big “I’m rubber, you’re glue” feel to this pointless back-and-forth.
Unfortunately, my kids haven’t reached that stage of development yet, though they have gone into nanny-nanny-boo-boo territory. I think that’s where the comment thread is.
I agree with the core premise that if you’ve got to argue with a lot of words that you’re masculine, then you’re not. Kind of like people trying to prove they’re smart by using multisyllabic words, but in the manner of Dogberry, and thus proving the complete opposite. And the opposite here is not feminine but whiny.
I’ll take Paul Lynde. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Dang! A fine scotch beat me to it!
This would proclude engineers from the ranks of the masculine. Which reminds me of a joke:
What’s the difference between an introverted engineer and an extroverted engineer?
The extroverted one looks at your shoes when talking to you.
Aw shit. preclude.
Well, meep. I think it’s pointless, too. And it’s the pointlessness of it, coupled with the absurdity that animated it to begin with, that got me to post on it.
As with Caric’s various circular treatises, these kinds of arguments should be pointed to and laughed at, even by those who would ordinarily find common cause with their purveyors.
It’s okay to call Neiwert or Caric’s arguments stupid, meep. You’re using an internet handle. No way Kos can step in and take away your liberal bona fides — at least, not so that it’s enforceable.
Recursive friction, frustrating the primate as he searches the mirror for Thumos…
Speaking of David Lynch…
Possession of the penis does not make one masculine.
Hey, you got the equipment, you’re a guy, no matter how many breast and cheekbone implants and Vegas showgirl acts you’ve been in. Most men who dress in drag don’t look like regular women anyway. The average drag queen looks like a parody of a woman.
Unless they’re being really subtle, then I guess I don’t know the difference.
Again, I’ve never understood the taunt of “not being a real man” that boys shoot at each other. I guess it comes of the complex nature of male sexual identity, which, having begun inside a woman, needs to differentiate itself from “herness” and become a “him.”
Give most little girls a Tonka truck, and they’ll either play with it or not. Give a Barbie to most little boys, and they’ll throw it back at you to avoid the humiliation of being seen with a doll that they’re not dismembering.
“Either way, they find something that proves the validity (idiocy) of their point.”
Wouldn’t that make their point a “validiocy”?
Or Barbie becomes a gun. Or a super-spy on a mission.
Or they just drop the damned thing, pick up a stick, and get to playing the way they want.
One point we keep skirting–so to speak–is that traditional masculinity is no longer fashionable. Men–especially white men–have been at the bottom of the totem pole for the last three decades. Having caused all the world’s evils, they are everywhere hated and scorned.
Neiwert adopts this puzzling attitude as an attempt to reconcile the fact that 1) he is, through no fault of his own, a white man; and 2) that is, apparently, the worst possible thing he could be. It’s a little existential legerdemain to keep his head on straight.
Yes, and my internet handle is the name I’m actually known by my friends, so it’s not really hiding me…. and if they want to remove my liberal bona fides, they’re welcome, as I’ve not been a liberal for at least 6 years now (though possibly a little longer…it’s hard to say).
I mean, it does crack me up that this guy is trying to shoehorn whatever it is he’s doing into proof that he’s masculine and those making fun of him are faggots (or something). Did John Wayne ever write a treatise on masculinity? Was his masculinity ever in doubt? The argument has the smell of teacher’s pet whining that he ought to be popular with the other kids, and why is everybody beating up on him.
Synova has the best comment in the thread so far.
Did someone say mescaline?
Dr. Helen was talking about how men are expected to constantly apologize in words and in actions every moment of their lives for the sin of having a penis.
Oh, boo fuckin hoo. If you know you’re doing the right thing with your life, you’ll be impervious to “excess guilt” or emotional blackmail.
If you feel guilty about the way you live your life, you’re not living it right.
And if you don’t know whether you’re doing the right thing or not, listen to your conscience and figure it out. This continual bitching about us poor white men really gets on my nerves, speaking as a poor white man.
Do you suppose Neiwart’s significant other at least lets him use her razor when she makes him shave his legs?
What? Did that comment make my butt look fat?
Try as I might, I can’t summon any indignation over this masculinity debate. It seems like High School redux, and the 1960s were a long time ago. I guess I’ll just be secure in being me, and leave the labels to someone else.
So I want to thank Kelly, who got me to look up “epicene.”
I’m trying to decide whether to have mustard, or wasabi and mayo on my burger. Maybe I’m conflicted. Maybe I’ll have one of each.
You’ve been punk’d. Please resume your foaming.
Doesn’t Maddox have the last word on manliness?
Sorry, meep. There’s a “moops” who comments here, and I think I got you two confused.
Whatever happened to the very masculine tradition of the Poet/Warrior ?
It has been said here, but what the heck!
A man doesn’t have to think about being a man. He just does what a man does. Some do high-speed stuff, like jump out of aircraft at night at five hundred feet. Others go to work, pay their debts, and raise their children to be decent, civilized humans. Some do both. Neither spends their free time wondering whether they are men. That is left behind with puberty, pimples, and the rest of the adolescent baggage.
Hamlet says of his father, simply, “He was a man. We shall not see his like again.”
The highest form of compliment in Shakespeare’s Renaissance England was to say that a person was “like himself,” i.e., beyond compare, a nonpariel, singular.
That is all.
Mikey NTH @ 62:
“A man doesn’t have to think about being a man. He just does what a man does. Some do high-speed stuff, like jump out of aircraft at night at five hundred feet. Others go to work, pay their debts, and raise their children to be decent, civilized humans. Some do both. Neither spends their free time wondering whether they are men. That is left behind with puberty, pimples, and the rest of the adolescent baggage.”
“Neither spends their free time wondering whether they are men.” reminds me of the old saw “if you can worry about whether you’re crazy, then you’re sane.”
The line I draw is not wondering. It’s posturing. Which we’re seeing a whole lot of in this debate on several blogs. I wonder whether some actions are correct (in context, “manly”) — others I take for granted. When I start trying to demonstrate that I’m “manly” is when I’m likely to be just being an asshole.
Not pointing any fingers at specific people, but I’m reading a whole lot of demonstrating on these various blogs.
Mr. Robinson, thank you. I think you have it.
Actually, Joseph, I have to disagree. The argument about masculinity closely parallels the argument about maturity.
There are two ways to interpret “Be a man!”: Be a man, not a woman, or be a man, not a boy.
I’m guessing that the former interpretation is the one that’s in play here, whereas Cowboy’s formulation speaks to the latter.
Me, I prefer that a guy be a Man rather than a Boy, but I have to confess that if I found my husband trying on my dresses I’d be a bit concerned.
Europeans need this conversation way more than we do.
Well, yes, happyfeet, they do. Very few of them seem to acknowledge that in American mythology the cowboy is the knight-errant. He goes about protecting the weak, rebuking the strong, making justice where there is none.
The American Cowboy is Ivanhoe, Roland, Robin Hood, and Don Quixote. Whether old or young, alone or with a companion, he goes forth to right wrongs. The cowboy can be laughed at, but the laughter says more about the cowboy’s detractors, and worse, than it says about the cowboy.
All the great heroes loved by their people are ‘cowboys’.
Doc Holliday
Doc and Wyatt, now those were men. Johnny Ringo too, in a sick kind of way.
The rest is all bullshit, and turns on perceptions that are culturally formulated and adopted. Leftists like Neiwert are far more interested in the topic because they are far more interested in deconstructing the existing perceptions and replacing them, by rhetorical fiat, with newly-minted cultural formulations.
Which construct would collapse the first time any of these lib weenie men confronted, say, a pack of Hell Angels.
Well, yes. Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, in the mythologies, are the white knights, and the Clantons were the dark knights. But the real men are not as important to the story as the roles they played. They have ascended beyond that and became heroes and villains; like Robin Hood and the Sheriff, Prince John and Richard the Lion-Heart.
The example is very important, the myth. If a man is to strive towards a mythical example, which myth do you want him to reach for in his hour of trial? A larger-than-life hero, or a small man whipping off bitter one-liners while seated at a coffee-house table?
I know that I have thought more of the Lone Ranger when the chips were down than a chain-smoking dillettant. And acted accordingly.
Mikey I love you. Someone else gets the value of myth! The myth and the ideal are incredibly valuable, not as a reflection of reality but as something to strive for, that larger than life hero or that ideal of combined self-sufficiency and selfless service. And given the chance people *do* conform to it, do live up to it. Not every day. Not in every interaction. But given the chance they do strive towards that mythical example.
Oh, okay, maybe other people get it too, but when I write something about American mythology and identity I usually end up wondering if everyone thinks I’m nuts.
Intellectual cynicism seems to be about tearing down the myth and mocking the idealistic. It’s an ultimately destructive conceit and it annoys me.
Cynical intellectualism?
[…] as engaging in macho behavior by liberals, are by definition less many and secure in their manhood. Jeff Goldstein has been doing the majority of the water-carrying on this one, and I suggest you go read the linked post and the […]
The thing is, we have to learn how to be men. I can’t say about women, I’ve never been one. But men need to be shown what a man is,I learned how to be a man from very stereotypically masculine men. But men who while protecting the Good and True, could help the weak and sympathize with those who failed. The problem is that this image of Manliness is a transcendental one, one that we did not create, but one that is an Archtype. Since it is bigger than we are, we can not fully understand it. The glorious and manly thing to do is to analyze it, to work to understand it, to glory in the new revelations, to honor it but incorporating our new understandings into our lives.
Myth is incredibly important. Also a difficult concept for some to get. I mentioned John Wayne as an example of a manly type to a friend and she mentioned that the Duke apparently got out of serving in WWII somewhat dishonorably (I can’t say yea or nay on that) but the point she missed is that the symbol of John Wayne is quite different from the man Marion Morrison, who took JW as his working name.
Myths are very important; they can start resistance or sustain it long after reason would say surrender. The destruction of an opponent’s myths is an important way to break his will to resist. He no longer has those examples to steady his nerves and fill himself with resolve.
Why do you think the left has spent so much time emphasizing the worst about America and the US military? Why do you think there has been this concentration on Abu Gharaib and every other scandal? It is to destroy the myth of America the Liberator, to weaken American resolve and get it to surrender. To destroy the myth is to destroy the soul of the nation; so yes I do think the press is on the other side – and they are one of our worst enemies.
The left these days makes most of it’s living tearing down ANY myths that remain in this country. After all what was Brokeback Mountain but a attempt to tear down the Cowboy Myth. There have been any number of movies that have gone back to WWII (the last good war by the reasonable left’s standards) and tried to tear down the myth of America the Liberator. Since Hollywood and the MSM types are almost all liberals, and at the far end of the spectrum for the entertainment types, there is little likelihood of getting anything else out of them for the near future.