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By Dan
#13111869
Been a long while since my last post and I don't think the economic crisis post is gonna happen, but you get this instead.

Here's a comic that's been floating around the net for a while. It is one of the more depressing things I've seen:

Image

This, sadly, is how society seems to be turning, and it is destroying our boys, who will someday be our men, maybe, if we're lucky.

Today's society is highly stacked against the proper development of boys. When I was a child you could see this happening, it hadn't fully hit yet, but you could see it turning.

Young boys do not have opportunities for adventure, exploration, risk, play, and wholesome violence, instead they are suffocated in safety. We lock them up in school for most of the day, and then when they get fidgety (which they will given that their boys) they are diagnosed with ADHD and have their spirits killed with psychotropic drugs. Recess and gym class, which used to be the haven for young boys to exercise their lust for adventure, danger, play, and violence, has been drained of it all. Schools are now banning tag and soccer, while the classic games of dodgeball, tackle football, king of the hill, and the snowball fight were on their way out when I was going to school or even earlier. Jungle gyms, which used to be dangerous challenges to be overcome, are becoming more sanitized and safer, to the point that their no longer fun. Half the fun of the jungle gym was testing how far you could go, knowing that you wre risking breaking your arm. Swimming trips and school trips are becoming less common as the risk of liability increases. Zero tolerance is an absurdity becoming more and more common.

Children are coddled at home as well. Children are taught that strangers are to be feared. That they should avoid danger and always play safe: strangers are to be feared, unsupervised exploration is to be feared, streets and traffic are to be feared. Traditional dangerous things that boys enjoyed like pocket knives, fireworks, fires, roughhousing, treeforts etc. that used to be chocked up to boys being boys are increasingly being put out of reach of children. Instead, children spend about six hours a day at the computer or tv, pretending to do these things. All of these are working together to blunt a boy's spirit and his ability to grow healthily.

Now I mentioned wholesome violence, which may seem kind of an oxymoron to some, but that is only if you misunderstand boys. Boys have an intrinsic love of violence. There's little that is more fun for a boy then pelting a freind with a nice, hard-packed snowball or dodgeball, or tackling him in a violent game of tag, or throwing him down the snow hill, and having it done to you in turn. This is violence, and it is wholesome. It allows boys to develop their physical skills, physical control, and pain tolerance, it allows them to learn lessons of the thrill of victory and the sting of defeat, it develops social interaction skills and self-control, it teaches them of risk, and it's just plain fun. Now violence can be unwholesome, beating up the weak kid or hitting a girl can not be tolerated, but wholesome violence should be encouraged for proper development. Sadly, wholesome violence and danger the influence of the passive violence of video games and movies becomes greater.

But while the world of boys has grown more restrictive and suffocating, conversely they are not given the discipline they need, but are instead given almost free rein within their little worlds. Due to liability, teachers and principles are almost powerless to discipline children. Parents are increasingly reigning in the discipline boys need out of a misguided sense that it's abusive. But this lack of discipline is by far more abusive; boys need to learn their boundaries, that there are some things they just don't do, that they should hold values, that they shouldn't use their strength against the weak, taht they should develop self-control.

Also tied in with this is the self-esteem movement. It acts as if children's egos are fragile and need constant, narcissistic reinforcement for a child to feel valued. This causes discipline to be put by the wayside so as not to hurt their feelings. But even worse, instead of instilling the important virtues of confidence and humility in children, so that they believe in themselves and their values without being prideful rather then seeking the praise of others, they are taught that there value is dependent on the praise of others.

This dichotomy of a lack of freedom and a lack of discipline has created a dangerous situation. They are not learning the full range of masculine virtues they need. Some become fully indoctrinated in the lack of freedom that they lose their manhood; they lose the virtues of daring, courage, endurance, and confidence. Others rebel against the lack of freedom without self-control, stoicism, prudence, duty, chivalry, or honour. Through this most boys lose something that will be an essential part of their manhood.

Boys need to grow up knowing danger and risk and being willing to take them, but they must learn to do so prudently and to accept the conseqences when they do. They must be strong, but to use their strength for justice, rather then to prey on the weak. They must be confident, but without foolish pride or arrogance. They must be passionate in the pursuit of their values, but always with these passions leashed. They must learn duty and honour.

Sadly, we are failing them, and this can not end well.

“The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.” - Nietzsche
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By Siberian Fox
#13113911
I find myself agreeing with just about everything your wrote there Dan.

I remember reading an article about the rise in female violence back in the 90s, saying how fights between young women were particularly vicious because they had not learnt the boundaries of when to stop like boys do in contact sports and low-level 'play' fighting. Boys wouldn't let an argument spoil a game for everybody if agreement couldn't be reached, they'd learn when enough-was-enough and just 'play on'. However, with the way society is going boys too are going to lose these skills.

Back in my fathers day he took a knife to school to sharpen his pencil with and the teacher thought nothing of it. When I grew up I had a knife that I used for model making. These days kids [though they are told not to] carry knives because they are scared of everyone and end up stabbing each other as a result. They don't know the consequences of actions. They haven't got real boundaries and they haven't learnt by trial and error at a lower level of danger.

So yeah, nice article.
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By Jordan9
#13530873
Well said, even though I am from a much more recent generation (born 21/07/90), I grew up in a very rural area; a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia with a population of ~250 folks. Rough housing was a major component of our formation and growth, and it wasn't a successful day of playing outside if you didn't have a couple scabs on your knees. :P

I have fond memories of lighting bonfires, learning to shoot targets, fishing, bike racing, king of the hill on snowbanks, tree branch sword fights, and all sorts of fun stuff. The more dangerous things like fires and shooting were done, of course, under adult supervision. And to be totally frank and honest, me and my close friends were probably some of the less violent and more tame boys in the village :P

I definitely feel a lot of young boys are going to miss out on very important experiences and lessons if roughhousing continues to go the way of the dodo.

And, as you alluded to, what gets me is that we implicitly tell kids its ok to sit on XBox Live, screaming racial slurs and profanity, and shooting increasingly realistic representations of people in the head. But wresting your best buddy for supremacy of the snowbank? Nah, that's just violent and wrong.

We're seeing the repercussions of this, too. I see young boys, in the sixth and seventh grades or more, who have no idea what manhood means. Even within my own generation, there are men who didn't learn boundaries or masculine virtues, and so they become what manhood is in it's most basic, untempered form: "fuckin' and fightin'." And not fighting for justice or to defend someone, but usually because of some sort of insult (real or perceived) to their person, which is a symptom of a childhood of constant reinforcement even when the child is wrong.

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