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On October 31, 2021, Republican Senator Josh Hawley delivered a keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, Florida, in which he put forth an impassioned defense of traditional masculinity.
“American men are and can be an unrivaled force for good in the world—if we can strengthen them, if we can empower them, if we can unleash them to be who they are made to be,” Hawley said. “Then they shall, in the words of Scripture, ‘build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former desolations; they shall repair the ruined cities, [and] the devastations of many generations.’”
Lamenting that too many men have withdrawn into the “enclave of idleness, and pornography, and video games,” Hawley declared that “the crisis of American men is a crisis for the American republic.” Reclaiming the traditional roles and responsibilities of manhood in our gender-confused times, in our emasculated culture, he argued, would go a long way toward reclaiming American greatness.
I happen to agree, having written many times over the years about how critical a re-envisioning of chivalric masculinity is to the survival and flourishing of Western civilization. But predictably, Hawley’s speech triggered a full-scale offensive of mockery, eye-rolling, and anger from leftist politicians, pundits, and celebrities who consider themselves pundits, because there are few things the Left hates more than traditional masculinity.
Rolling Stone magazine, for example, wrote, “Josh Hawley’s bizarre obsession with masculinity is the most pathetic front yet in the GOP’s culture war.” Fact check: the GOP is not the party waging a culture war; it is only belatedly responding to a culture war that the Left has been waging for a half-century. By the way, Rolling Stone is the magazine, you may remember, that put a come-hither glamour shot of Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover. That’s the sort of masculinity role model Rolling Stone admires.
The View co-hostess Ana Navarro, whose so-called commentary never rises above the level of sneering, scorned Hawley’s speech: “That masculinity needs defending and #joshhawley is its self-appointed defender, is laugh-out-loud funny.” Fact check: not once in his speech did Hawley appoint himself the defender of masculinity or hold himself up as its standard bearer.
Jennifer Rubin, the in-house faux conservative at the Washington Post, slammed “disgusting” Hawley for “[p]ropagating misogyny.” Fact check: what’s truly disgusting is Rubin equating masculinity with misogyny.
Former Rep. Joe Walsh, another faux conservative, tweeted inexplicably that Hawley’s speech is “going to lead to more violence. It’s going to lead to more people getting hurt.” Fact check: it is a weak, conflicted, threatened masculinity that leads to violence. The kind of masculinity Hawley is championing protects the innocent from the violence of bullies.
Then there were the many juvenile ad hominem attacks like this one from The Daily Beast: “Josh Hawley Knows Nothing About What Makes a Real Man, or a Good One.” Or this one, from former California Rep. Katie Hill, who resigned after she admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with a female campaign staffer: “Lol like anyone thinks Josh Hawley is masculine.”
Morgan J. Freeman – not the mellifluous-voiced actor but a producer of such TV “entertainment” as Teen Mom and Sixteen and Pregnant – seemed especially unhinged by Hawley’s comments. “If I were God, I’d strike this toxic masculinity fuck-head from the face of the Earth…. NOW!” he erupted on Twitter.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a discredited smear organization whose primary agenda is the demonization of the Left’s political opponents, published a 5000-word, fear-mongering fantasy called “Male Supremacy Is at the Core of the Hard Right’s Agenda.” (The article referred more than 30 times to a shadowy, evil entity called “the hard right” without every defining it, but apparently the term includes everyone who is not Progressive). Dismissing legitimate concerns about our crisis of masculinity into a call for a “male supremacy” straight out of a Handmaid’s Tale fever dream, the article cites Hawley’s speech, describing him as a “hard right figure” addressing an “audience of hard-right influencers” just in case you missed the point that talk about masculinity is hard right code language for patriarchal oppression.
These are just some of the samples that are clear indications that Hawley touched a nerve, because as the saying goes, you draw the most flak when you’re directly over the target. The Progressives who spent a half century pushing women to emulate the most stereotypically “toxic” male behavior, who cheer on biological males crushing the competition in women’s sports, who have elevated men-playing-little-girls to the level of the sacred in our culture, but who condemn any hint of aggression and competition in males, were furious that Hawley was issuing a call for boys and young men to throw off the chains of their despondency and their porn and gaming obsessions to rise up and become the responsible, productive, everyday heroes and builders and leaders and godly warriors they were meant to be.
This hardly seems objectionable, so why was the Left so triggered? Because central to the Left’s neo-Marxist agenda is what Karl Marx himself called “the abolition of the family.” Essential to that aim is the elimination of any distinction between men and women in their roles as husbands and wives and fathers and mothers. This is accomplished through the sexual “liberation” of women (launched with the Sexual Revolution) and the deconstruction of masculinity – especially the latter, because for totalitarian state control to succeed, men must be emasculated and cut off from their purpose as providers and protectors.
For fifty years the Left has called for the empowerment of girls and women, but the notion that boys and men should be no less empowered strikes the Left as ludicrous, even though women today lead in every metric of educational and career success while men are falling dramatically. Today it is demonstrable fact that it is American boys and men who are in crisis, not women; but this reality is always greeted with derision by the Left, because their ideology depends on the false narrative that men have a monopoly on power and privilege, while women are the perpetual victims of an oppressive patriarchy.
A week after his National Conservatism Conference address, Hawley told Axios that he hoped to make masculinity a signature political issue. Clearly he is serious about that, because now he has published a new book on the theme, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, from conservative publisher Regnery.
In Manhood, Hawley asserts – correctly, I believe – that “no menace to this nation is greater than the collapse of American manhood, the collapse of masculine strength.” He then goes on to describe the manhood he envisions as one that embraces traditional roles and is biblically defined. “The Bible story is an epic that speaks directly to the purpose of men…” he writes. “The Bible’s mission for men is an invitation to matter. And it is, at its core, an invitation to character.” [Emphasis added] “Man’s sacred mission,” Hawley adds, “is to cultivate the world, order it, and bring forth its potential: make it a temple.”
More: “To be a man as the Bible defines it is to acquire the character of a husband and a father, a warrior and a builder, a priest and a king. These are the roles of the Adam mission. This is the character that defines manhood.” In a very personal narrative peppered with stories about the men who shaped his own life – among them his grandfather, father, and son – and stories of biblical figures such as Adam, Abraham, and David, Hawley devotes a chapter to each of those roles: husband, father, warrior, builder, priest and king, and points the way for a lost generation of young men to reclaim their purpose and destiny – to matter.
One of the ways in which Hawley’s vision of manhood is important and true is his emphasis on humility and service to others, both of which stand in stark contrast to most of today’s gurus of masculinity, who are becoming legion. Their focus is on masculinity as mastery of traditional tasks and roles in the world or at playing the game of sexual politics, both of which are centered on being good at being a man. But there is a world of difference between good at being a man, and being a good man. Not that the two are incompatible – far from it. Ideally, the two should be integrated and synergistic. But being a good man – i.e., moral masculinity – is the elan vital, the vital force that powers strong families, strong communities, strong nations, a strong civilization. Hawley recognizes this.
The Left may heap ridicule on Senator Hawley for daring to make this topic a central political issue, but millions upon millions of boys and young men in America today – and the mothers, daughters, and sisters who love and need them – know in their hearts that our culture is failing, collapsing, and that we need to be having this conversation. Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs is an important voice toward that end. “These are troubled times,” Hawley writes. “But trouble may lead to renewal. If the Bible is right, the mission of Adam beckons, and the possibility of something better – for men, for America – awaits us.”
“ millions upon millions of boys and young men in America today – and the mothers, daughters, and sisters who love and need them – know in their hearts that our culture is failing,”
The culture is grooming them, it’s succeeding in this quite brilliantly I am sad to say. Younger and younger kids are “coming out” as something or other.
Nobody asks the question, Why, what’s the root cause of the desire to groom?
The answer is at two levels, the personal and the political.
At the personal level they were probably abused.
At the political level they are saving the planet.
The men need to be told that God put them here to protect women and children and lead their family. If they do not, they will burn in Hell for all of eternity. Keep repeating it until they realize it’s true.
We already do, however ever since the so called feminist movement turned into TOXIC feminism, we have seen nothing but the continued destruction of the nuclear family.
Toxic feminism does not want equality, they want superiority and have the men pay for it. (Sort of like the queen bee and the slave workers. Society continuously laments about ‘the poor single mother’ insinuating that the boyfriend, husband, etc was a cad, and abuser etc. etc. Yet in fact many men (and families) are being abandoned by the mothers who bring the couples children into the world only to have the woman leave her responsibilities of being a loving mother and wife.
Toxic feminism like toxic progressivism just cannot allow anyone or social construct to take away their importance and superiority, because they feel they are god first and women second. And if you disagree you will be smeared sued, made false accusations against, etc. , etc.
Until society moves to the Biblically view of the family heiaricy of God, the Man (the husband), the Woman (from the rib of man), then the children (from the bonding of man and woman) and finally the country. Until society is able to return to this basic principle, peace will not prevail.
“Nobody asks the question, Why, what’s the root cause of the desire to groom?” The answer is glaringly obvious to even the most casual observer. The groomers cannot procreate, so they indoctrinate. If they’re allowed to. I can’t say anymore, “Does it get any worse than this?” It’s become a contest.
Hawley is 100% right on the Marxist assault in the family that was commenced by feminists and popular culture and continued by the LGBT movement
I have heard some instances where men just come home from work and play video games for hours and this really ticks their wives off. I’m not saying video games in themselves are wrong, but God did not intend for men to withdraw themselves. As men, we need to lead our families wisely.
In the movie ‘Glory’ Morgan Freeman plays an escaped slave who joins the Union Army and rises to the rank of Sergeant Major. In a speech to his troops just before battle he says, “Now’s the time to ante up and kick in like men. LIKE MEN!”
So Morgan were you just reciting a line or did you mean it?
I guess not. “If I were God, I’d strike this toxic masculinity fuck-head from the face of the Earth…. NOW!”
Thank God you aren’t God.
I don’t think that you read the article very carefully; it states that it is a different Morgan (J) Freedman, NOT the actor!
Likewise Being a god can be overwhelming for you.
It is TRUE that a ROLLING STONE gathers no moss, but roll it through a PILE OF DOG SH)T or a DEMOcrat’s BRAIN and it will be coated with CRAP!!
Stopped reading that rag when P.J. ORourke left.
The excruciatingly vulgar and hyperbolic response to his words is proof that masculinity has become so repulsive in our society because its current definition is distorted. Multiple baby mommas, men sucker punching women of all ages, rap music lyrics are disgusting descriptions of ghetto manhood and a culture of entertainment depicting the most masculine as the devil incarnate and you must be a bit feminine to be good guy. It’s a cruel joke and men, particularly white men, have become the punchline.
Chivalry was never doctrinally Christian; it was always a substitute focus secularly motivated–standing on street corners to be seen of men…
God makes abundantly clear–the woman is the glory of the man, the man is the glory of Christ, Christ is the glory of God the Father… Neither was the man made for the woman, but the woman was made for the man… There are, of course, no female angels, only those female humans created to assist in the God-ordained dominion of man in His creation…
None of this has the first thing to do with any alleged ‘oppression’…
None of this has the first thing to do with any alleged ‘oppression’… That is very obviously a contortion motivated by garden-variety sin, which has been in evidence since the first woman was willingly deceived, attempting to place herself above her husband, and thus necessarily God at the same time… “Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands, even as unto the the Lord.”
Respect is for men, consideration is for women… Courtesy is not remotely synonymous with ‘respect’…. Nor is any program of courtesy or selected secondary values any substitute for the demands of genuine faith and obedience to God in His program in creation–which is from and to His own glory, the greatest possible good in all the universe…
The idea of men socially practicing emphatic deference toward females is an absolute inversion of Biblical values… What, exactly, would supposedly be wrong with God’s original program of female deference in the first and last place?… The chivalrists would have had Adam ‘sacrificially’ exert himself to pick the apple for Eve, and hand it to her with a bow and a flourish, to the amusement of a certain class of spectators…
Its time for men to start being men again and for boys to learn how to be boys and not Ballet Dancers or Tree Huggers nothing is wrong with masculinity except in the small minds of bossy pants liberal snowflakes/sissies
Remind them if they do not protect their families then God will send them to Hell forever. Not a joke.
A democrat doesn’t possess patriotism OR masculinity. They fall into only one of the now-identified genders – Male,…………. Female,……………………………………………………… and democrat.
Commies don’t like men. They fight back.
You’ll have to get men off Tik Tok and Facebook first. Good luck with that!!