Mountains To Moors

When I arrived at work this morning, I had to stare for several minutes at the dark beauty I saw before me. The lights in the parking lot gave fire to the orange and red ornamental maples ringing the lot. Goblins had come along in the night and stuck Poe’s flambeaux into the mulched earth and left them to burn until the sun returned to chase away the effect.

Walking to my building, I heard two young men near a car talking. I winced at the tone and content of their words.

It’s not an original observation to say that today’s males are not….well, men. There is a hideous softness, a charmless effeminacy to most of them. I have been aware of this for some years, and like most things that irritate us, once I became aware of it, I couldn’t not notice it.

I can’t recall the last time I watched a news program in which at least one male didn’t cry or at least choke up. Whether the reporter asks the interviewee about child abuse or corn prices, the male on camera will blink, his lip will quiver, he’ll swallow, and then his voice will break as he responds to whatever inane question was posed. It truly sickens me. Is this how Christ the Lord responded when He was told about a tower falling on a bunch of people and killing them?

The phenomenon is particularly noticeable when males interact with their children (and sometimes their grandchildren). Their voices go up several octaves, they bend forward at the waist or squat down, and their eyes grow wide, and they get all sing-songy and giggly. Did any of you ever see your fathers or grandfathers behave in this way? And what’s telling is that the children who are the objects of this behavior usually regard the male with either a blank stare or open contempt. And the males are oblivious to this. A lack, shall we say, of situational awareness.

I see this in how males relate to each other in conversation, too. Used to be that men would face in the same direction when talking to each other. Looking out across a field, or at a car being repaired, or at a fine draft horse. But now they stand very close to each other (when not cowed by Coronasquealing), looking into each others’ faces and emoting all over the place. One almost expects them to embrace or produce perfumed handkerchiefs from their sleeves and begin fanning each other.

Gone are the days of rough masculine joking. And by “rough” I do not mean coarse or obscene. Men typically would give each other a hard time in a work environment, especially the new guy. An almost merciless series of pranks or insults would be aimed at the easiest target….but the fun would eventually wind its way around to even the alpha male of the group. It was expected and it was accepted. But now? Try joking around in a masculine fashion with most males and they get their little feelings hurt. Two men can have a long-standing friendship shattered by one of them deciding to take offense at a statement that any outsider could clearly see was a joke. And once said offense is taken, the two men will be wary, circling each other, one of them determined to take offense and demand apologies, and the other bewildered by the flaccid overreaction and, well, womanish behavior. It’s a sad thing to witness.

Also interesting is the degree to which holdout masculine behavior is condemned by most of society. A man who refuses to play effeminate will be accused of being a bully, of being unfeeling, of being harsh, of having the wrong tone, and of the worst of all offenses: not being “nice.” Most Americans today have spent almost no time in the presence of truly masculine men. And they’re discouraged from doing so, because to the masses, “masculine” means vulgar, crude, insensitive, boorish, and crass. Certain groups have made damn sure that this is the public perception. The reaction to a statement like “Men no longer act like men” is similar to the statement “White people should be proud of their heritage and their bloodline.” It elicits a terrible and immediate reflex. “Patriarchal pig! Racist!”

Thinking on these things, I realize that I am exceedingly weary of this situation, and I realize that I have been systematically distancing myself from males who exhibit the sort of castrated behavior I’ve described. I also have no time nor use for females who berate males with their helpful instruction on how to be a man. As a people, we have left the glory of the mountains and battened on the malaria-ridden moors. In the coming years of privation and gloom, will the current males be able to fight and lead?

The answer is obvious. The answer is depressing.

But the glory of the trees and the majesty of the natural world remains, cyclical yet implacable. This is a great comfort to me as my circle of associates gets winnowed down.

~ S.K. Orr