Wimps and Barbarians. The Sons of Murphy Brown. (Long, but good)

The Claremont Institute ^ | December 8, 2003 | Terrence O. Moore

[waRNmother.armyboots]

My son was sent this article by a young woman and she asked for his thoughts which I have put below. Any thoughts from freepers.

Son's response A certain kind of music would soften the souls of young men.

Young males, of course, have always been rough around the edges. But in the past, their edges were smoothed, in part, by being introduced into female company. Boys learned to behave properly first from their mothers and later around other women and girls. They held open doors, pulled out chairs, stood up when a woman entered a room, stood up in public places to offer their seats, took off their hats in the presence of women, and carefully guarded their language so as not to offend the fair sex. All that is gone. In no other aspect of their conduct is barbarism more apparent among a large number of young men these days than in their treatment of women.

It used to be that women were relied upon to be a civilizing force around men. No longer, thanks to feminist movement women can be just as crass as men, and then women bemoan the fact they get treated "just like the guys." It resides wholly with women to choose who the next generation of fathers will be (and by extension what the next generation of men will be like) as no one forces them into marriage, at least not in our culture, and they still have the final word on accepting or rejecting a proposal. Thus if they want men to be upright, responsible and brave they should marry someone upright responsible and brave. Basic breeding principles alone would dictate that in a couple of generations the brigands would be bred out, but the very problem is that women don't marry men who are "upright, responsible and brave".

Rather, ever the fans of projects, many women marry with the goal of changing men. A foolish thought, for which the Arapaho have a parable regarding a snake and a fox (You knew I was a snake when you carried me on your back. Why are you surprised then when I behaved like a snake and bit you?) Who do we have to blame for this? One of the very people Moore holds up, namely Jane Austin and all the other foolish "Romantics" of their time, like the Bronte sisters, who encouraged women through stories of changing deeply flawed men and thereby proving ..what I am not sure. That sometimes you get lucky in the roll of the dice? That maybe so, but I would never want to make my living on my earnings from Roulette.

Wimps make worthless watchdogs. But their failure as watchdogs or guardians has nothing to do with size or physique. My father used to tell me when I was growing up, "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog" that matters. Many of today's young men seem to have no fight in them at all. Not for them to rescue damsels in distress from the barbarians. Furthermore, wimps vote. As Aristotle pointed out, to the cowardly, bravery will seem more like rashness and foolhardiness than what it really is. Hence political and social issues that require bravery for their solution elicit only hand-wringing and half-measures from the wimps. Wimps are always looking for the easy way out.

This requires and obligatory potshot at the French for they, more than any other, charge Americans with being "cowboys" when in truth they are the hand-wringing cowards. And yet, our American women pine for the French (or Euro) male despite the abysmal track record that many have in the bravery department (excepting the British). Can you say "cognitive dissonance?" Truth is both sexes could do with a healthy shot of rationality as it isn't just men that are led by passions. In fact, dare I say it, I would think of the two in American society, men, far more than women, can at least muster something of a rational explanation for what we do or what we think. For far too long "feelings and intuitions" have sufficed as an answer from women.

By way of illustration, I was on a recent ski trip and in the car ride up to the slopes the talk inevitably turned to politics and war (inevitable for me). One of the partners in the conversation was a female and she said that she thought the war was "wrong" but she couldn't muster a reasonable rationale for why, she just said in her heart she knew it was wrong. But the surprising thing is she acted like that settled the matter. To be sure this isn't true of all women, just as it isn't true that all men are led by their passions (even on the issue of the war itself I have known many women to marshal a coherent argument for and against it) but it does typify what has been allowed to pass in society as an answer. Men are condemned when we put such thinking to the test, we are told that we aren't being very "sensitive" or "cooperative." And who do we have to thank for this jargon that passes for an argument? Moore hit it on the head, the most recent iteration of the feminist movement and all the other post-modern critiques that deal in "dialogue" rather than "competition"(unless your ideas be of Judeo-Christian or Anglo-American origin in which case they are de facto wrong or oppressive).

So on the whole I agree with Moore's assessment I just disagree where the culpability resides. Only manly fathers teach the next generation of men to be manly and you only get manly fathers if women marry manly men. As it turns out basic breeding principles may prove the death knell of the manly man, as far more nebulous criteria like "personality" or "he makes me laugh" seem to weigh more for women than he is "upright, responsible and brave"

[Lyford]

bump for later

[gridlock]

Bump

[redhead]

I agree wholeheartedly. I was blessed enough to marry a MANLY man. My sons--two from a previous marriage and one from this one--all try very hard to emulate the manliness and heroic behavior of their dad. It's a beautiful thing.

[Tax-chick]

An excellent article, and your son's responses are very intelligent. Obviously he's been well brought up :-). I think he's particularly perceptive in observing that women have to take responsibility for the kind of men they marry. If they asked themselves, "What kind of father will this man be?" then I think they'd have a very different perspective from the usual!

Unfortunately, most young women don't seem to think of themselves as potential mothers, nor of men as potential fathers. And even when they "somehow" wind up as parents, many don't understand that this requires them to ... grow up! The problem is that neither gender wants to be what they were intended to be. Both seem to want to be lifelong children, because being either a woman or a man worthy of the title is hard work, and many have been raised to avoid hard work, especially if it doesn't provide immediate gratification.

Again, congratulations on your son - he's got a very good mind!

[waRNmother.armyboots]

I responded to my son's email above and said that if women want to know why there are few manly men left then they have no further to look than at the generation of women who were the mothers to those men and also to look at themselves. If they want there to be manly men then the solution is no further than their looking in the mirror. Women have a lot more power than they are willing to admit. In general, in the last generation (70s, 80s, 90s) we have not used it to the betterment of our families and world. Instead women have been a destructive force or a silent one. We bought Satan's lie of "I" or if it is easier to think of it as "me". Same lie that caused problems in the Garden of Eden. Anytime we try to place ourselves on the throne instead of God.

[Desdemona]

later

[ChewedGum]

Manhood is not simply a matter of being male and reaching a certain age. These are acts of nature; manhood is a sustained act of character.

This sentence really stood out to me. It is taking me years of hard work to move my boys into manhood. I cannot imagine how boys without a father manage it. I know it happens - through other avenues of support (coaches, surrogate fathers, pastors, teachers).

Abdicated fatherhood is a blight upon this nation.

Gum

[kitkat]

One minor point, but an important one nevertheless. Murphy Brown is depicted in this article as a woman who became pregnant and was then deserted by the father. This statement weakens the premise of "family values," because it implies that Murphy would have provided a father for her son if she hadn't been deserted.

Is my memory wrong, or wasn't Murphy determined to have a child out of wedlock, and didn't she refuse to reveal the father's name? And wasn't that why Quale made his statement about family values?

[Desdemona]

Is my memory wrong, or wasn't Murphy determined to have a child out of wedlock, and didn't she refuse to reveal the father's name?

The father of her child was her ex-husband, if I recall, and he wasn't interested in being involved.

[Cicero]

Yes, this makes good sense. It's possible to do without a father in the house if a young boy has good luck with his male friends, inlaws, or teachers, but these days that is increasingly rare. For instance, an all-male boarding school used to do a pretty good job of straightening out problem boys, but of course now most of them are co-ed, even the military academies.

[TalBlack]

Plato was right to regard the education and civilization of spirited males as the sine qua non of a decent political order.

Plato however did not live in a society which was deluding itself that there really was no such thing as manliness. In Plato's culture a man was defined. In order to teach boys how to be men we MUST have a definition of a Man. Definitions are absolute and therefore politically incorrect

Up until 30 years ago a man was defined and shaped by our own American culture. But since then we are, in certain circumstances even threatened with official sanction, if we act or believe as men did as little as 30 or 40 yrs ago.

Whats more we will even accept the predictable and preventable DEATH of men in order to maintain the utterly indefensible and discredited idea that there is no REAL differences between males and females. We will even allow the erosion of our rights in the same demented persuit of equality. Last week, as reported in the NYPost, a female cop gunned down a berserk man who was unarmed and who had charged her. No one said a word about the PATENTLY illegal use of a firearm--and THAT I believe is a first.

If we go so far as to admit any sort of actual manly sphere by defining a man, we might then then preclude that female cops presence on the force. Unless of course we made up a definition out of whole cloth--but no one would buy that, which is RIOTOUSLY funny when you consider what this stupid and getting stupider society has demonstrated it willingness believe.

We have left males to define THEMSELVES and they will. We as a society have ceded control, as a group, of male aggression and its employ and its direction. It is left to the individual. God help us.

Me, I can take care of myself, I'm not afraid of anyone, but if I were not such a person I'd be damned worried about whats coming in the next few years.

Start packing heat, ladies, like the cop cited above.

[waRNmother.armyboots]

"One minor point, but an important one nevertheless. Murphy Brown is depicted in this article as a woman who became pregnant and was then deserted by the father. This statement weakens the premise of "family values," because it implies that Murphy would have provided a father for her son if she hadn't been deserted."

I was never a Murphy Brown fan, but I think the father was actually willing to marry her, but she was not willing to marry him. You are right of course that it does come down to family values.
Men are much more than just sperm donors as the feminists and men haters would have society to believe. God actually knew what He was doing when He created the family unit.

[waRNmother.armyboots]

"Abdicated fatherhood is a blight upon this nation."

I could not agree more. It is a difficult job being a parent and I truly believe that although humans are very resilient that the best case for rearing children is with a father and mother.

[waRNmother.armyboots]

"Plato however did not live in a society which was deluding itself that there really was no such thing as manliness. In Plato's culture a man was defined. In order to teach boys how to be men we MUST have a definition of a Man. Definitions are absolute and therefore politically incorrect."

I think it is worse than that. I think that in fact "we" as a culture or society have decided that a true man (I am thinking of GW Bush here. You know the cowboy....etc.) is repugnant. It is sad as my son lives in Seattle and is chronicly verbally abused by women when he does the polite thing such as opening a door or giving up his seat on the bus. He is only 26years old and is very frustrated that his "manners" are taken for insult.

[squarebarb]

Everybody knows what's wrong. The schools, the popular culture, the elite culture, women working full-time to help pay the taxes, the ACLU poised to sue anybody and anything that moves if things aren't depraved enough to suit them, an ACLU-loving judiciary...

The thing is, how do we stop it?

[The Right Stuff]

I believe you are right. The father (ex-hubbie, whatever) was willing to marry her, but MB struck a blow for radical feminism and determined to "raise" her son alone (delegating him to nannies while she pursued her ever important career)

As the mother of two boys, I say this article is right on. Feminism has wrought many ills, chief among them the detrimentalism of fatherhood and the objectivacation of women. Danielle ___? wrote "What our Mothers Didn't Teach Us" about how women's magazines changed from the 1970s "women need men like fish need bicycles" to today's pathetic "how to get a man, how to have sex like he likes it, etc."

Whoever coined the term, "Peter Pan man" had it exactly right. Women in the 1930s had more power (albeit a different kind) than the biggest female executive today.

[norton]

"Whoever coined the term, "Peter Pan man" had it exactly right. Women in the 1930s had more power (albeit a different kind) than the biggest female executive today."

Absolutely true:
not even limited to the thirties, women in the sixties and seventies could claim more real power than todays ball-busters. Why? Because the real mavericks refused to be compartmentalized and went ahead and did it, or because others recognized that managing the family was a full time and critical job.

Either way, neither they nor their offspring (male or female) were as lame as today's offerings, until the great society and sexual revolution turned 'family values' into a sit-com and make Murphy Brown a generational icon.

Not to be a Pollyanna here:
there have been lousy mothers and lousy fathers since day one. But today it is increasingly the norm, today it seems to span all socio-economic levels, sub-levels, types, ethnicities, and affiliations.

[TASMANIANRED]

I too married a manly man. Brains and brawn.
After my sister divorced we mentored her son as he was approaching those difficult years. At first it was just free babysitting to her but it worked out as a right of passage.

My husband taught him to box, had those talks with him about behaving honorably, living rightly, how do discern the right thing and then do it.

I benefited because he was a fun teenager to be around. He had a wicked sense of humor and was manerly enough not to be a pill. He also enjoyed my cooking and told me often.

He finally hit his later teen years and they drifted apart. He turned into a decent young man. Neither a wimp or a barbarian, but he still lacks a little direction.

[Modernman]

The oldest lament in human society- this generation of kids is no good. Every group of adults says that about the current crop of youngsters. Nothing new or incisive here.

These 'wimps and barbarians' are the same group of kids who just overthrew two brutal regimes in the Middle-East. A society that creates men (and women) like that has got to be doing something right.