Newsblog: Welcome Back, Duke: From the ashes of Sept. 11 arise the manly virtues by Peggy Noonan.
Noonan asserts that “men are back” after writing a couple of weeks ago that “God is back.” Both columns gave me inspirational goosebumps (I’m not sure if they were the John Wayne or Alan Alda variety) but both also troubled me.
She lauded Bush’s first speech to Congress after the attack, as did I. But she didn’t deal with his goofy assertion that “God is not neutral” — a notion that I challenged in my Sept. 21 weblog.
She nails the class issue — “the professional classes have a new appreciation for the working class men of Lodi, N.J., or Astoria, Queens.” But she defines “masculine men” too narrowly by tying it to physical courage and strength — and only in their line of work.
“I am speaking of masculine men, men who push things and pull things and haul things and build things, men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe. Men who are welders, who do construction, men who are cops and firemen. They are all of them, one way or another, the men who put the fire out, the men who are digging the rubble out, and the men who will build whatever takes its place. And their style is back in style. We are experiencing a new respect for their old-fashioned masculinity, a new respect for physical courage, for strength and for the willingness to use both for the good of others.”
Our culture fawns over industry tycoons like GE’s CEO Jack Welch, with nary a glance at what he was like as husband, father, neighbor, and citizen. We run the risk of doing the same with these working class guys. And what about the guy who wins the Nobel Peace Prize? Or the guy who stands up in front of the local school board to challenge the status quo for the sake of the kids? Or the guy who says no to a night out with his buddies so he can keep his promise to show up at his kid’s play? No physical courage or strength needed for either, so they’re not manly men?
I don’t have a problem with our having a new respect this “old-fashioned masculinity” — I’m as thrilled as anyone to see the guys at the WTC site being honored and respected for their work. Noonan deserves praise for her piece, but I wish she had tempered it a bit. As is, her characterization of what makes a man manly seems just a little too thin, too exclusive, and too close to celebrity worship for my taste.