My latest in Touchstone Magazine critiques Richard V. Reeves’s helpful-though-flawed Of Boys and Men, rejects the neo-pagan alternative (“‘LARPing’ through the pages of an imagined ‘High T’ past”), and offers the Christian alternative: Jesus the Bridegroom.
Earlier this year I found myself among a group of conservative scholars discussing the significance of the neo-pagan manosphere. I commented that what we are seeing is simply a new iteration of the age-old problem of weak men and abusive men, and I suggested that what we need is a masculinity that is both good and strong. “Yes,” mused another, “where’s Ron Swanson when you need him?”
I quipped that, personally, I had been thinking of Jesus Christ. But, then again, perhaps Swanson —the gun-toting, bacon-inhaling, libertarian tough guy with a heart of gold from the television show Parks & Rec, who often acts as a kind of paternal protector for female characters —perhaps Swanson is, in his own peculiar way, a Christ figure. At the least he is an achievable approximation of healthy masculinity in contemporary America, though certainly not the only model. As Renn has said, quoting an unnamed pastor, healthy masculinity has to include everyone from Mr. T to Mr. Rogers. Ideally, Mr. T —at least in his public persona —would have a bit more of Mr. Rogers in him, and Mr. Rogers could certainly use a dose of Mr. T, but the point stands.
How can we raise up more Ron Swansons, more Misters T and Rogers? In that same conversation I claimed that the solutions —the conditions necessary for raising boys into healthy, strong manhood —are pretty simple. That statement provoked skepticism. There are, after all, no silver bullets. A young person is a person, not a machine, and there is no set of inputs that can guarantee a certain output. Further, while the generally necessary conditions for masculine formation are fairly straightforward, they are extraordinarily difficult to effect in contemporary America.
Read the rest here — it’s not paywalled, but you have to click on “Continue Reading” to read most of it.
