Becoming a Barbarian - Jack Donovan   Masculinity is under attack yet again, but recently it has taken a turn that even I didn't expect. It's no longer enough to say that masculinity has toxic attributes. No, the lefties, feminists and progressive are now doubting that there was ever anything about masculinity that wasn't toxic. Welcome to the show my toxic friends, this is episode 28 of Barbarian Radio The Fate of Men   So to start us off we have an article from vice, the article is about a new book called "i'm afraid of Men" by a man who thinks he's a women called Shraya. her book explores the idea that all masculinity is Toxic. Let's take a look.   https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbjzbd/why-it-might-be-time-to-retire-the-buzzword-toxic-masculinity   "Language can be so powerful," Shraya told VICE. "Terms like 'emotional labor' can be so useful but I deliberately never say 'toxic masculinity.' It's a deliberate choice because I think a lot of people don't really know what we mean but toxic masculinity it's just become a kind of buzz phrase and I wonder about the need to qualify masculinity because toxic masculinity suggests that there is a masculinity that is what, not toxic? And I don't know that I've experienced that."   It sms like this is the new way of looking at maculinity for the emasculated lefties. but in reality it is nothing new. Another vice article came right out with a title, All masculinity is toxic. In it they talk to a male feminist writer who has been writing on this since the 80's. It's worth noting that this guy was married to one the leaders in third wave feminism, Andrea Dworkin.   https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmk3ej/all-masculinity-is-toxic   So, I was surprised and intrigued when I came across the powerful ideas of John Stoltenberg, whose theories kind of epitomize the fears of paranoid conservatives and undercut the more tepid critiques of machismo made by my fellow SJWs. In the past, the prominent feminist scholar has openly equated the idea of "healthy masculinity" with the oxymoron of "healthy cancer." This is because he sees manhood as an identity built entirely out of oppression. He contends that the parts of manhood that we view as non-toxic don't actually have a designated gender—and describing these actions or qualities as masculine just reflects our disdain for women. His emotive 1993 book The End of Manhoodhighlights his personal struggles trying to live up to the restrictive norms of manhood while guiding readers on how to drop the mask of manhood so that we can be free to give and receive love.   I don't use the term "toxic masculinity." One of the problems with it is that it implies that there's some better manhood out there, that there's a good manhood and a bad manhood. I think as a communication, that is not really clarifying to anybody. It just exacerbates that kind of one-upmanship mentality, like, "Oh, I'm a better man than that kind of man." And that better-than/worse-than is a real trap.   https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/05/07/the-war-on-men/   With attitudes like this about masculinity floating through mainstream academia, it's no surprise that this is now how men are being taught to behave. This is nothing new by the way, both soviet russia and communist china saught to reform and domesticate men.   In Maoist china The Chinese notion of the "new man" was significantly influenced by its Soviet predecessor.[12] It's attributes were absolute selflessness; obedience to the Communist Party; class consciousness; ideological study; participation in labor and production; versatility; and being a "Red expert."   The truth is men are a problem, Men shape the world and free thinking men shape worlds fit for themselves. It's no surprise that these feminists and leftie socialists need to find a way to tame men. Masculinity is a genuine threat to their continuing power.   Larry Kummer from the blog Fabius Maximus puts it this way.  

Boys are indoctrinated beginning in grade school. Boys who show too much spirit are drugged into submission (on Boy Scout treks I have administered the drugs to these boys, most of whom do not need them). Christina Hoff Sommers thoroughly documented this disgraceful story in The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men.

Young men receive vigorous indoctrination in college, sometimes including mandatory orientation sessions for freshman. Here is a typical film. This is the education for which parents pay one or two hundred thousand dollars – and for which young men burden themselves with crippling student loans (the equivalent of paying for the executioner's bullet).

Let's have a listen:   Mask you live in   It's not just in schools however, Even companies like the metrosexual Bonobos company have weighed in on the state of masculinity.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6jz2Jma5-s   Ugh, Pathetic. These men are scared of masculinity because they are inferior men who can't stack up. In an earlier era, they would have been the slaves of stronger men.   So what really is the problem with traditional masculinity?   Let's let a feminst women tell us, Here's collier meyerson from thenation.com   https://www.thenation.com/article/do-we-need-to-redefine-masculinity-or-get-rid-of-it/   It might sound rash, getting rid of masculinity. But it's really not a crazy thought. We only have to look back a little over 100 years to understand that, in America, the concept of masculinity was constructed to defend white supremacy and white male dominance over black men and women of all races.   The shift in white middle-class American male identification at the turn of the 19th century was also a way to justify white supremacy. "Linking whiteness to male power," Bederman wrote, "was nothing new.… during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, American citizenship rights had been construed as 'manhood' rights which inhered to white males, only…Negro males, whether free or slave, were forbidden to exercise 'manhood' rights—forbidden to vote, hold electoral office, serve on juries, or join the military. The conclusion was implicit but widely understood: Negro males, unlike white males, were less than men."    The problem with this is that she obviously conflates masculinity and race in a way that is so improbable and dishonest it will make your head spin.   The reality is that there are traditional aspects of masculinity that define in and out groups. Men decide where the line between us and them gets drawn. You can conflate that with race but that doesn't mean masculinity is a white supremicist ideal. All men of all races do the same thing.   But here is where the basis of the lefts issue comes from, to them, masculinity is white supremcy. Masculinity is the embodiment of oppression.   Don't believe me here it is again from another feminist woman jaclyn friedman at the guardian   We have to get a lot more deliberate if we want to transform masculinity into a healthy identity that doesn't rely on the subjugation of women. It would be a whole lot easier if we started at the beginning, teaching boys that being strong includes being able to embrace their own vulnerable emotions and that girls aren't teacups or trophies or aliens from Venus but fellow human beings who are pretty dang interesting.    

Dozens of programs work with boys to help them rethink what it means to be a man. These programs need to start younger

Men and masculinity is also the mechanism of all woman's oppression. In fact, she insinuates here that oppressing women is the fundemental basis on which masculinity is constructed.  http://www.millennialmanifesto.literallydarling.com/how-to-be-a-man-redefining-masculinity/ "Be a man." The meaning of this pervasive phrase seems simple: don't show emotion, be tough, be masculine. At this point it's worth asking why masculinity has been defined on these terms. Masculinity is not based on white supremacy or oppressing women.   to understand masculinity, we need to look at the past. It is very easy to pluck a piece of masculinity from culture and hold it up to the light without any context and draw the wrong conclusion about it. This is what all these feminist writers do.   They take masculinity out of its cultural context and then compare it to feminine virtues to deem it reprehensible.   Part of the misinterpretations have to do with our modern cosmopolitan viewpoints. If you belive that men and women are functionally and even biologically interchangeable or to use the modern axiom that "gender is a social construct"    Then male behavior requires some explaining. Why is it that boys are so different from the girls. They violent, aggressive, rebellios and they are constantly comparing themselves to other men and looking for ways to test themselves physically, mentally and emotionally.    But Why? Like i said, we have to look to the past. We have to imagine what kind of enviornment masculinity evolved in. I find this a great exercise when I don't understand something. And yes, masculinity evolved with men biologically. We are the way we are because of our biology, not some nurtured defunct sense of manhood.   As the video pointed out, male suicide rates are very high. Is that because we live in a hyper masculine society? One that pits men against one another so ruthlessly and unemotionally that some crack under the pressure. You would think if this was the case, cultures like ancient sparta would have been rife with suicide. Or the vikings for that matter.   or could it be that we live in a hyper feminized society that no longer sees men's natural biological function as being useful. Young men are lost in a society that doesn't value them, sees them as broken women and when men find that they have no outlet for their desire for heroism, adventure or purpose they decide to just check out.   Jack Donovan the fate of men:   Men are pack animals, the reason we test each other is simple. We need other men we can rely. Men evolved in conditions that modern man can scarcely imagine. Rough conditions, every day like a shit hits the fan scenario where you would have to fight nature and other men for survival. Most men would die after years of fighting with nature to survive or at the end of a spear.   When that is the stage that you live on, you need men around you that are strong, competent, trustworthy and couragous. You don't need men who are consumed with their emotions, that would damage the health of the group. You don't need weak men, they offer no protection and risk your chances in a fight. You don't need foolish and incompetant men, they will fail you when the stakes are raised and you need their help. And you don't need cowards, they have already been paralyzed by fear.   Now you could say that we don't live in that world anymore and I would agree. I think that is mucjh of the reason the definitions of masculinity are changing. We live in a comfortable world with plentiful food and resources, all threats are handles by a small band of real men like soldiers and policeman. Men are no longer needed the sheepdogs have you covered.    Of course there is an irony in that truth. The people who sit around discussing the rebranding of masculinity are like philosophers in a tower inside a castle surrounded by a wall that is surrounded by another wall that is guarded by real men.  It's easy to redefine your masculinity when you outsource your protection and safety to real men and sit comfortably behind their sacrifice.   The reality however, is that the state we are in is temporary. If I learned anything valuable from Buddhism it is that everything changes.   Like I mentioned previously, the conditions of modern civilization are coming to an end. We cannot keep up our current system. And even if we could, would it be worth it. Living lives of material comfort free from challenges and any kind of Honor. We may as well just plug ourselves into the Matrix and use our useless bodies as batteries for a more ambitious race of robots.   If and when the thin vaneer of civilization cracks, the world will be in need of real visceral masculinity and that is exactly why we need to keep it going. Men are like tools or weapons, you don't always need them, but when the shit hits the fan, people will be looking for real men. Nobody is running to the floral shirted homos shopping for $80 italian belts at bonobos.   They are going to look for a man that is strong, courageous, masterful and honarable.   When men reclaim that path, they will find their purpose, they don't need to get in touch with their feelings, they don't need to praise weakness, they don't need to be proud of their cowarice and they won't need to get their honor from their cosmopolitan sense of style and posh progressive ideas.   They'll need to be Men.