Buddy Hawley

It's not like the titties just showed up

Josh Hawley, the junior senator from Missouri best known for giving a Black power salute to the January 6^th insurrectionists before fleeing from them, has written a new book. The book is called Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. Yesterday, he tweeted about it:

As a Leftist (not sure if I’m a capital “L” leftist, but whatever) who has also written a book about masculinity, which I would be remiss if I didn’t plug right here, I have naturally gotten some questions about what I think about Hawley, and about the larger conversation around men being had by right-wing personalities such as Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson, a man who might bristle at the suggestion that he’s “right wing” but anybody sucking on Ben Shapiro’s teat is going to get that label from me.

So here are my general thoughts about them, and my specific thoughts about Hawley. I’m actually delighted that a faction of right wing thought leaders are having this conversation because it’s an important, and under-discussed topic. I think they’re correct to be worried about the state of manhood in America. Both they and I recognize that men are struggling.

In the first chapter of his book, Hawley cites a number of alarming statistics around men, such as the facts that fewer of them are going to college, getting jobs, and living on their own; he says they seem adrift, rudderless, without a clearly defined sense of purpose. He recounts an anecdote about a law student of his who seemed to have it all: “a bright and talented young man, sociable, witty, a person of faith” who, nonetheless, twice tried to commit suicide.

These are real problems men face. The question is why and what is to be done about it? I’m happy that people like the men I mentioned are taking this problem seriously and seem serious about wanting to do something about it, even if their solutions sometimes involve tanning your balls.

As for Hawley’s book specifically, my thoughts will be incomplete because I have only read that first chapter because it’s the only one I was able to read for free on Amazon and, having read it, I don’t see the need to read more. Nevertheless, that sample gives a pretty good indicator of where he’s headed.

(Black power!)

Hawley blames the current male condition on a host of problems, including feminism, video games, the “left’s attack on manhood,” transgenderism, and porn. In fact, Hawley has been on a something of anti-porn crusade over the last couple years, so much so that his most recent senatorial opponent made a campaign ad which simply features Hawley saying the word “porn” over and over again.

In a 2021 speech entitled “The Future of the American Man” delivered to the National Conservatism Conference Hawley said, “The Left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the traditional masculine virtues – things like courage and assertiveness and independence – as a danger to society.”

Here’s my take on that quote: he’s not wrong. In my own book (again, helpfully linked here if you want to read), I discuss the problem with the term “toxic masculinity,” arguing that it’s a poor choice, not because the term doesn’t describe an actual problem, but because we don’t have a healthy model of masculinity with which to contrast it. As a result, those same traditionally male attributes that Hawley mentions do get labeled as toxic in men, but celebrating when applied to women. My problem with where Hawley is going with all of this – and where the entire rightwing intelligentsia seems to be headed – is their conclusions.

Hawley writes, “In 1970, 95% of thirty-year-old men earned more than their fathers had. By 2014, only 44% of thirty-year-olds could say the same.” Are young men making less than their fathers because they are watching porn and playing Mario Kart or is it because the last fifty years have seen a steady decline in the kinds of good paying union-supported American manufacturing jobs their fathers and grandfathers once had? Should we blame porn or the outsourcing of the American workforce, union-busting, corporate consolidation, the rise of technology, and the transition of the economy from one centered on manual labor to one centered on creative thinking, group problem solving, and emotional intelligence? I know which option I think. Keep in mind I once found a stash of my dad’s porn collection underneath his bathroom sink; it's not like titties just showed up the last few years.

(Pictured above: titties)

I think Hawley identifies a real problem when he describes the state of education among American boys who are under-performing their female counterparts in almost every measure, including college attendance and graduation rates. Hawley writes, “Between the 2015 and 2020 academic years, college enrollment in the United States fell off by 1.5 million students, with men constituting 71% of that drop.”

These are startling numbers. The question is why? In the chapter I read, Hawley doesn’t offer a reason but, perhaps surprisingly, this isn’t a new problem. From an article in the Financial Times:

In 1923, an official British report on secondary schools remarked: It is well known that most boys, especially at the period of adolescence, have a habit of ‘healthy idleness.’” Meanwhile, the report warned, girls tended to be ‘over-conscientious’, putting their reproductive organs at risk.

Boys have always goofed up, fucked around, and somehow gotten through. What’s different between then and now is that girls are no longer being held back. In fact, over the last sixty years, since the beginning of the modern women’s rights movement, a revolution has taken place, a revolution in which girls are being celebrated, encouraged, and taught that they can do anything and be anything. For the first time, girls have access to the same opportunities in academics, sports, and careers. The results speak for themselves.

Boys, on the other hand, have been left behind. They are not celebrated in the same way as their female counterparts mostly because the idea of celebrating boys for being boys would have seemed absurd until now.

In fact, the opposite is true. In a school setting, boys’ rambunctiousness and exuberance is tamped down, their roughhousing punished. Of course, not all boys are alike, but the ones that do act like wild monkeys are far more common than girls who behave the same. Traditional school isn’t well-suited for boys and girls like that. It’s unclear if traditional school is well-suited for most people, particularly when recess is cut back or removed entirely. The constant academic pressures brought to bear on students from a young age serve boys well, particularly because their brains develop more slowly than females, especially when they hit middle school. Any parent will tell you the same. From the Hiller:

As puberty starts, female brains jump to at least two years older than their physical age. Males, however, usually take until their late teen years or even early twenties to match their female peer’s mental age.

Rather than looking at deeper underlying problems with boys, Hawley, predictably, blames the Left:

The members of today’s left have pushed liberty into nihilism, defining it as the right to live free from biological sex, family, tradition, and God – free from reality.

If this hypothesis were correct, wouldn’t we expect to see girls wilting on the vine along with boys? After all, girls are subject to the same cultural rot as boys. So why are they succeeding where men are falling apart? Wouldn’t these godless women be joining their male counterparts on the couch, forever rubbing one out? But that’s not what we see.

Regardless, Hawley has a solution to all that bemoans us: The Bible.

My claim is this: The Bible can inspire men today, guide them, and disclose new possibilities for their souls – new purpose, new strength. And that means renewal for the American republic.

I mean… sure? Yes, the Bible has been an inspirational and instructive book for generations of people. Yes, the Bible teaches lessons on virtue, kindness, compassion, strength, and forgiveness. But is Christian indoctrination really the way we want to go as Americans?

Did we really lose our way when biblical instruction went out the window in public schools? Because that started happening well before now. By the late 19^th century, religious instruction had all but fallen away in public schools, a time which coincides with America’s rapid rise a superpower. In fact, as Christian nationalists gain a firmer toehold on American public schooling, the secularists among us could plausibly argue that it was precisely when we stopped teaching the Bible that America became great.

Josh Hawley and his brethren are to be commended for recognizing that men are in crisis. They are correct that something needs to be done. Ball tanning and Bible reading probably aren’t going to get us out of the mess we’re in, but I’m glad they’re joining the conversation. I just don’t want them leading it.

Oh yeah, here’s my book one more time, which is much, much better than his: