Do not fall prey to the false belief that mastery and domination are synonymous with manliness. – Kent Nerburn
I’ve never really talked to my sons about the difference between maleness and manhood, that “being a man is a right to be earned and an honor to be cherished” as Nerburn says. I started thinking about this last week when they hosted a birthday party for their sister at their apartment. I saw that they had our old crock vat filled to the brim with dozens of mostly men’s magazines: Maxim, Details, GQ, Esquire, Playboy, FHM, plus a few others. They have their TV on quite a bit, watch a lot of sports, rent a lot of movies, and in general, seem to pretty much saturate themselves in the media culture aimed at twenty-something males. Or maybe more accurately, aimed at twenty-something maleness. Our media culture too often celebrates maleness through competitiveness and aggression and domination without the moral values to go along with it – strength, mastery, and courage developed and deployed for a cause greater than oneself.
Then I read about the two men awarded the Prize for Humanity, one for standing up to his fellow US soldiers who were slaughtering unarmed Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, the other, a pastor for confronting Hitler face to face about his manipulation of the established Church. I wonder if any of the men’s magazines will profile these guys.