So I was reading an article called “The Pussification of the Western Male” by a guy named Kim Du Toit, and it sorta struck a nerve with me tonight. Maybe it’s been a mix of a few different things, but the jist of it is that we’ve become half the men we used to be because we’re a mother driven society, and that now we’ve become over warned, over refined, and over wussed. Wild At Heart parallels this, saying that in our culture men are no longer permitted to be men. We have to be refined, we have to be have to be controlled – in other words, we are no longer allowed to be dangerous. We as men are no longer permitted in our society to feel powerful beyond our control. We have to be encapulated in our jobs, in our committments, and in what the world wants us to be. And you see men walking around dead inside. They look empty, they act empty, and they act out in some way or another to get that power back. As I read the Du Toit article, I see that at least there are some guys who are mad about it. But it’s all misplaced anger. Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on as it relates to the role feminism played, by getting angry at it, it merely propigates the issue at hand: that there is a growing amount of men that don’t think they have what it takes to stand up for truth and character, and be a man of integrity. When they have the chance to do something, they get mad and fuss instead of looking inside themselves and growing. So to Mr. DuToit, I’d say this: if you are tired of the Pussification of America, grow as a man and have integrity. It might require a trimming of your language and some more grace, but I have no doubt your capable. Like you said so truthfully: be more like Dad who is kind and firm, but willing to stand up when things are wrong. That’s strength – graceful power.
I guess in this discussion when Wild At Heart is brought up and when the spiritual degradation of men is brought up there’s still a point missed. Sure, we’ve lost a sense ourselves, and we should find power and we should be the Lions of Judah. But you can’t just be that, either. I think about Jesus, and he was one of the most tender individuals anyone could have met. He loved deeper and cared more about the people who deserved it the least. There was kindness in his soul. This can’t be lost in the shuffle of regaining a man’s heart. However, it’s very obvious to see that Jesus was also powerful (heck, he’s all God in a man’s body), and he had a passion and fire to him. He fufilled a life beyond himself, one that trancended his time here.
This is ultimately where I see Christian men feeling empty, and why we have a generation that is so limp-wristed: because we as men have simply stopped living for something beyond now. Think of a guy you know, and then think of what seems to prioritize: work, his wife, his family, his social status, God? I would venture to say that the men who you think are honestly living with God as #1 in their lives are not the wimped out men of this generation, but men who have some sort of passion in them… something that makes them look and act differently. When a man doesn’t have a life outside what he lives in, he grows weak like a caged animal. And then he finds it more and more difficult to fend off those things that he could have deflected with all of his power – greed, lust, envy, fear.
This point is why I ultimately take a small exception to Wild At Heart and reactions like DuTiot’s, because I feel you can be a powerful man and wear nice clothing and be refined. You can be a music person or an english person and still harbor that Christ-like passion. It’s a matter of where you ultimately ascribe your identity. You place it in earthly things and you eventually get drawn out because it can’t fuel you, or you place it in the God who created everything and who is all powerful, and you feel some of that energy. You want to be of it and in it.
Anyway, that’s a long enough write for me. Peace and love all, and happy Easter.
adam w anderson 