Understanding Manhood

Steffan Thielen

There are interesting phenomena revealed every day through our seemingly uneventful lives. Even as kids play on a playground they are unwittingly engaging with the intricate realities and laws that govern our universe. A seesaw, especially, reveals one physical concept that has led to our society’s identity crises. When one end of the seesaw is pulled back, potential energy accumulates, akin to a coiled spring, eager to be released. The higher it is pulled, the greater the potential energy it harbours.

As inanimate as it may seem, the seesaw serves as a metaphor for the balance between good and bad men in society. Just as the seesaw’s extremes disrupt the balance, men who pushed the boundaries of masculinity too far, upset the equilibrium. Their relentless pursuit of harshness and dominance accumulated immense potential energy, unsettling the delicate harmony that once existed. Like the release of the seesaw, the consequences reverberate throughout society. The tipping point of this teeter-totter, was the events of the Second World War, the last straw for men, just before they would have destroyed the planet. Unfortunately, this led to a catastrophic ricochet, propelling the pendulum to the opposite extreme. The once-assertive masculine identity crumbled, giving way to weakness and passivity. Brace yourselves for an exploration of the intricate forces at play as we delve into the consequences of masculinity pushed to its breaking point.

Manhood is such a powerful phenomenon and that is why a society can either fall or prosper depending on the quality of the manhood it sustains. Firstly, according to the Youngman Foundation, extreme violence is largely a male phenomenon. Women are not likely to start gang fights or wars. Males do these things. A major line between bad and good men is their relationship to violence. A good man knows his proper place and will only resort to violence to protect others from bad people.This means the community is safer because good men control and demonstrate their male strength in prosocial ways. And while some men have misused their relationship to violence in the past, the solution is not ridding them of their innate characteristics. That would be like caging a lion because it ate too many antelope, and then expecting it to purr like a kitten. It is reckless and is pushing the seesaw to the other extreme and will result in an even bigger catastrophic social ricochet than the current one. We must uncover the delicate equilibrium between the untamed vigour of the assertive and the nurturing essence of the life-affirming. Our society will crumble if we don’t embrace true masculinity and encourage life-giving Manhood. We have the ability to revive men before we collapse due to the passivity of the current generation, or we encounter the devastating consequences of ignorantly caging the wild lion in the next.