It's Time To Define Manhood Clearly — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00In ancient Rome, the word that meant
2. 0:02effeminate, to be a man who was like a
3. 0:04woman, described men who were dominated
4. 0:07by their lusts and their passions. My
5. 0:10definition of mental illness was a very
6. 0:12good one. And you know, I think it's
7. 0:13really important when we talk about
8. 0:15these things to define what you're
9. 0:16talking about. The left loves to play
10. 0:17with language to say, you know, up is
11. 0:19down, right is wrong, and we just we
12. 0:21just need to change they they love to
13. 0:23denature language to take the morality
14. 0:25out of it. So, instead of saying this
15. 0:27guy is a pedophile pervert, they'll say
16. 0:29he's a minor attracted person as if
17. 0:31somehow that makes it moral to to rape a
18. 0:33child. So, I want to do the same thing
19. 0:35with manhood. I want to define what I'm
20. 0:37talking about before I start talking
21. 0:38about it. How we find it in our society
22. 0:41and how we recognize it, at least from
23. 0:43my point of view. This is the only point
24. 0:44of view I have to give you.
25. 0:46Conservatives have a serious problem
26. 0:47with this, with the idea of manhood.
27. 0:49They're confused about it. On the one
28. 0:50hand, they know that husbands and
29. 0:53fathers should be leaders of families,
30. 0:55and they know that when families don't
31. 0:57have a father, the the children are at
32. 0:59high risk. But on the other hand, they
33. 1:01have this kind of flirtatious
34. 1:03relationship with this libertarian view
35. 1:06of reckless macho, you know, PJ PJ
36. 1:09O'Rourke was a kind of libertarian
37. 1:11comic writer, and he had a a book called
38. 1:14How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting
39. 1:16Your Wing Wang Squeezed and Not Spill
40. 1:18Your Drink. That was the name of his
41. 1:19book of essays, and it started with this
42. 1:21famous paragraph that conservatives
43. 1:23loved. I never quite understood why. I
44. 1:25thought he was funny, but I never
45. 1:26understood why we loved it. But it
46. 1:27started with this famous line, "Name me,
47. 1:30if you can, a better feeling than the
48. 1:32one you get when you're half a bottle of
49. 1:34Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up
50. 1:36your nose and a teenage lovely pulling
51. 1:38off her tube top in the next seat over
52. 1:41while you're doing 100 miles an hour
53. 1:43down a suburban side street." And this
54. 1:45is the kind of bravado that I guess is
55. 1:47uh sort of
56. 1:48you know, represented by guys like
57. 1:50Andrew Tate who kind of
58. 1:52do this overblown version of macho.
59. 1:54Don't let women push you around. You got
60. 1:56to control them. You got to smack them,
61. 1:58use them, screw them, dump them. That
62. 1:59you know you you know the routine. And
63. 2:01young guys are very
64. 2:03find that very appealing because they
65. 2:05feel put upon by our kind of feminized
66. 2:08culture.
67. 2:09But as I've I've pointed out before that
68. 2:12the old version of manhood, the version
69. 2:14that I grew up with depicted a man as
70. 2:16someone in complete control over his
71. 2:18passions, his libido, his anger. And in
72. 2:21fact in in ancient
73. 2:24you know Rome, the word that meant
74. 2:26effeminate, to be effeminate, to be a
75. 2:29man who was like a woman
76. 2:30described men who were dominated by
77. 2:33their lusts and their passions, who
78. 2:35couldn't control themselves sexually or
79. 2:38couldn't control their emotions and that
80. 2:40they those men were effeminate. That was
81. 2:41what I grew up. I used to watch movies
82. 2:43and I played these clips a number of
83. 2:45times in the past. I won't play them
84. 2:46now, but you know with Kirk Douglas and
85. 2:47Spartacus who was one of the great male
86. 2:50role models when they throw a woman into
87. 2:52his cage, you know, he says, "Oh, you
88. 2:54can use this woman." He says, "I'm not
89. 2:55an animal." And he gives her her clothes
90. 2:56back. You know, that was the kind of
91. 2:57control that you saw. And of course in
92. 3:00my life the important one was Philip
93. 3:03Marlowe, the Raymond Chandler tough guy
94. 3:05detective who was played by Humphrey
95. 3:07Bogart. So here's a brief scene from the
96. 3:08film of Humphrey Bogart playing Philip
97. 3:10Marlowe and here this nymphomaniac
98. 3:12beautiful nymphomaniac comes up to him
99. 3:15and sort of throws herself in his arms
100. 3:17and he just laughs it off. This is cut
101. 3:18one.
102. 3:19>> You're not very tall, are you?
103. 3:22>> Well, I I tried to be.
104. 3:25>> [music]
105. 3:26>> Not bad.
106. 3:28Oh, you probably know.
107. 3:30>> Thank you.
108. 3:32>> [music]
109. 3:32>> What's your name?
110. 3:33>> Riley. Dog eyes Riley.
111. 3:36>> That's [music] a funny kind of name.
112. 3:39>> Think so?
113. 3:39>> Uh-huh.
114. 3:41What are you
115. 3:43a prize fighter?
116. 3:44>> No, I'm a shamus.
117. 3:45>> What's a shamus? [music]
118. 3:46>> A private detective.
119. 3:47>> You're making fun of me.
120. 3:49>> Uh-huh.
121. 3:50>> [laughter]
122. 3:50>> He's making fun of me. Uh-huh. He is.
123. 3:52He's not taken in with in by her or in
124. 3:55her control at all because he has
125. 3:56control of himself. That's what makes
126. 3:58him a male role model. Now, I'm a
127. 4:01detective story writer and the detective
128. 4:03story has been always considered a
129. 4:04conservative genre because it emphasizes
130. 4:07a man alone against society. And when I
131. 4:10worked in Hollywood,
132. 4:11I once asked a female exec, I said,
133. 4:13"What Whatever happened to all the great
134. 4:14private eye shows?" You know, the the
135. 4:16Mike Hammer shows. And she said to me,
136. 4:19uh
137. 4:20"Nowadays,
138. 4:21all the shows with
139. 4:23you know, the mystery shows, the crime
140. 4:24shows are about institutions. They're
141. 4:26police, FBI, CIA, because the world is
142. 4:29too complicated for one man to make a
143. 4:32difference." And that is a typically
144. 4:33female idea. We all have to work
145. 4:34together. We have to collaborate. We
146. 4:36have to, you know, make sure the
147. 4:37organization is doing well instead of
148. 4:39one guy just saying, you know, like that
149. 4:41was the great Mickey Spillane wrote Mike
150. 4:42Hammer, whose the the name of his books
151. 4:45were things like I am the jury and uh
152. 4:47you know, my gun is quick. Vengeance is
153. 4:49mine. And he would just hunt down the
154. 4:51bad guys no matter what the law wanted.
155. 4:53And this is why John Wayne uh hated the
156. 4:56great western High Noon. It's a
157. 4:57wonderful western in which Gary Cooper
158. 4:58is a sheriff facing a gunfight and he
159. 5:00goes around town asking for help and no
160. 5:02one will help him. Uh here Here is the
161. 5:04scene from High Noon where uh Cooper
162. 5:07goes to his old childhood idol, the
163. 5:09former sheriff.
164. 5:10>> Listen.
165. 5:11The judge has left town, Harvey's quit,
166. 5:13and I'm having trouble getting deputies.
167. 5:15>> It figures. It's all happened too
168. 5:17sudden.
169. 5:19People got to talk themselves into law
170. 5:21and order before they do anything about
171. 5:23it.
172. 5:24Maybe because down deep they don't care.
173. 5:27They just don't care.
174. 5:31>> [music]
175. 5:35>> What'll I do, Mark?
176. 5:39I was hoping you wouldn't come back.
177. 5:42>> [laughter]
178. 5:43>> John Wayne looked at that and said,
179. 5:44"What a wimp. He has to go and ask for
180. 5:45help." They And then he made a film
181. 5:47called Rio Bravo with a tough guy
182. 5:49director named Howard Hawks who said of
183. 5:51High Noon, I didn't think a good sheriff
184. 5:53was going to go running around town like
185. 5:54a chicken with his head cut off asking
186. 5:56for help. You know,
187. 5:57>> [laughter]
188. 5:57>> so this is this is the tough guy thing
189. 5:59that you're an individual. So,
190. 6:01the reason I became a detective story
191. 6:03writer the paragraph and I've read it
192. 6:04before but I'm going to read it again
193. 6:06because in this context it makes a
194. 6:07difference is the opening of the Raymond
195. 6:10Chandler's first Philip Marlowe novel
196. 6:11The Big Sleep which was what that clip
197. 6:13the Bogart clip was for
198. 6:15where Marlowe goes in and he see he goes
199. 6:18to see his client who's a rich man and
200. 6:20one of the windows in the rich man's
201. 6:21house depicts a knight in dark armor
202. 6:25rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree
203. 6:27and didn't have any clothes on but some
204. 6:29very long and convenient hair reading it
205. 6:31from the book. And he says, I stood
206. 6:33there and thought that I if I lived in
207. 6:35the house, I would sooner or later have
208. 6:36to climb up there and help him. He
209. 6:38didn't seem to be really trying. And the
210. 6:40idea of this paragraph is that
211. 6:43Philip Marlowe and and Los Angeles
212. 6:45detective in the 50s holds within him an
213. 6:48old chivalric ideal and he keeps that
214. 6:51ideal no matter how bad the civilization
215. 6:54around him becomes. By the end of The
216. 6:57Big Sleep, there's a scene a famous line
217. 6:59where he's doing out a a chess problem
218. 7:01and he tries to move a knight and then
219. 7:03he says, I looked down at the
220. 7:04chessboard. The move with the knight was
221. 7:06wrong. I put it back where I had moved
222. 7:08it from. Knights had no meaning in this
223. 7:10game. It wasn't a game for knights. In
224. 7:12other words, the chivalry that he
225. 7:14embodies
226. 7:15that makes him who he is is not present
227. 7:19in the surrounding
228. 7:21civilization but he's going to represent
229. 7:23it anyway. And that to me that set the
230. 7:25course of my life. That I thought I want
231. 7:27to be that guy. I want to write about
232. 7:29guys like that. I want to talk about
233. 7:30what it means to hold a set of values
234. 7:33civilizational values inside yourself
235. 7:35even when they've disappeared all around
236. 7:37you. And that's why I never subscribed
237. 7:39to feminism when it came along. I
238. 7:41continued to open doors for ladies even
239. 7:42when in New York they sometimes yelled
240. 7:44at me. I I never paid attention to any
241. 7:46of that. I just dismissed it because I
242. 7:47was holding the values that I thought
243. 7:50were the right values within myself. So,
244. 7:52Raymond Chandler describes his hero in
245. 7:53one of the most famous passages in crime
246. 7:55writing like this. He said, "In
247. 7:57everything that we can be called art,
248. 7:59there's a quality of redemption. It may
249. 8:01be pure tragedy, but down these mean
250. 8:03streets a man must go who is not himself
251. 8:06mean, who is neither tarnished nor
252. 8:07afraid." I'm editing this for space. He
253. 8:09said, "He is the hero. He is everything.
254. 8:12He must be, to use a rather weathered
255. 8:13phrase, a man of honor by instinct, by
256. 8:16inevitability, without thought of it,
257. 8:18and certainly without saying it. I do
258. 8:19not care much about his private life. I
259. 8:22think he might seduce a duchess and I am
260. 8:24quite sure he would not spoil a virgin.
261. 8:26If he is a man of honor in one thing, he
262. 8:29is that in all things. If there were
263. 8:30enough like him, the world would be a
264. 8:32very safe place to live in without
265. 8:33becoming too dull to be worth living
266. 8:36in." And that to this day is the core of
267. 8:38my definition of manhood. A man is
268. 8:41someone who holds a complete set of
269. 8:43honorable values within himself and
270. 8:45strives to live by them, whether he
271. 8:47finds himself in a world or shiv- of
272. 8:49chivalry or in this world. And I don't
273. 8:52care how many women like Chandler, I
274. 8:54don't care about his private life, I
275. 8:55don't care if he sleeps with a lot of
276. 8:57women or doesn't. I don't care if he can
277. 8:59win a fistfight or not. I what I care
278. 9:01about is if he's willing to go it alone
279. 9:03without any woman and willing to take a
280. 9:05punch or lose his money or lose his job
281. 9:08or in the worst possible extreme, lose
282. 9:10his life rather than turn aside from
283. 9:12that set of values he carries inside
284. 9:14himself regardless of the world. It has
285. 9:16nothing to do with the stuff that they
286. 9:17tell you on the internet means manhood,
287. 9:20the muscles, the strutting around, the
288. 9:22treating women badly or using women
289. 9:24without thinking about it.
290. 9:26And it's not someone who does the
291. 9:28honorable thing, who tells you he does
292. 9:30the honorable thing because politicians
293. 9:31will tell you that, actors will tell you
294. 9:33that. It's a man who does those things
295. 9:35when no one's looking and not only that,
296. 9:37when people turn away from him and won't
297. 9:39look at him. So, I want to take a look
298. 9:41at what that looks like in real life.
299. 9:43For more great content, like and
300. 9:45subscribe. Also, subscribe to the Andrew
301. 9:48Klavan Show wherever you get your
302. 9:50podcasts.