quetzalcoatl wrote:Could you elaborate? What do you consider the crisis of masculinity to be, and how has it manifested itself the past 4000 years?
Um well for starters any division into classes involves a constraint or a suppression of the masculinity of all but the highest class. I would argue that similarly religion almost always involves a suppression of masculinity.
Or to try another angle consider the relations between natives and Whites on the American frontier in the nineteenth century. Here you had the meeting of two cultures, one that was totally uncivilised and one that had been civilised for thousands of years, our heritage going back through Rome and ancient Greece. Young native men would leave the reservation and go on a killing, rape, torture and mutilation spree. We still use the term "off the reservation" from this period. If I'm feeling a bit uptight a bit stressed, particularly if I've spent too much time on a computer I might need to go out and kill a few people, rape a few women mutilate their bodies, burn some children alive, you know just generally let off a bit of steam. Now the fact that I face life imprisonment, hard labour or even the death penalty if I'm caught, I don't have a problem with. When a young brave went out on a war path if he got caught by an enemy tribe, he would expect more than a slap on the wrist. Native Americans weren't really big on community service. No my problem is I would be demonised, despised, treated as some sort of sick, pathetic pervert for actions that would be accepted as perfectly normal and natural expressions of masculinity from the Lakota to the Iroquois, to the Vikings to the Zulu.
Now I don't know if the the pre civilised horticultural societies of the Iroquois and the Lakota were natural. I don't know if their cultures allowed natural expression of cis heterosexual masculinity, but I'm damn sure civilised societies aren't.
What I'm trying to get at is that the idealogical wars that have plagued civilisation from the beginning have all been about regulating the competition between men. Even the regulation of women's sexuality is essentially about the regulation and avoidance of conflict between men. But since civilisation has begun we've been in constant ideological melt down. There has never been a time when society just worked. The golden patriarchal age before progressives messed it up is a total myth.
Take the first world war. Here was a time before society was messed up by women getting the vote,before the health and safety crew spoiled all the fun.
A time when men were men, women were women and small round furry things from Alpha Centauri were small round furry things from Alpha Centauri. World War I was amazing, the biggest ruck in history (up until then), fought with the best toys and millions of men got not just to fight for free, but get this, they were actual paid to participate. Amazing! But instead of gratitude for this orgy of fun, it actually unleashed an orgy of whinging and moaning. And please don't give me that Marxist bullshit about everyone was tricked into WWI by some evil Capitalists. I wasn't around for world war I, I was around for the golden age of British football hooliganism. i know why young men fight. if you want to understand the cause of WWI don't read Lenin, listen to Elton John:
[youtube]pSA_RLCriHs[/youtube]
Anyway hopefully that gives some indication of what I was trying to express.