To take this in a different direction, one not endorsed by H2F Man: What's worse than "toxic masculinity"? The toxic lack of masculinity. You benefitted from having strong role models. Men who were "down-to-earth" as my generation would say -- "based" is the new term, good at what they did, and comfortable in their own skins. We have now generations of young males growing up with absent fathers -- and with a general lack of functional adult males in their lives.
So these young males do not learn to deal with difficult situations and work through them. They do not understand that setbacks are normal -- and easily overcome. They do not understand the need for sacrifice, for self-discipline, to reach goals and obtain success. They are told everything should be easy, and that they are entitled to everything now -- right now. So they lash out. Behave anti-socially. Behave violently. In part, the denial of their biological masculinity was the foundation for these dysfunctional behaviors.
Testosterone is real. It affects body and brain development. For virtually all known species of mammals, the males take higher risks. Have shorter life-spans and/or proportionally diminish in relation to females as they age. In humans, we know the Pre-frontal cortex (the "executive" decision-making part of our brain & consciousness) takes on average longer to develop in males than in females. All other things being equal, we should expect young males to be predisposed to behave as they have throughout human history. Wokeness hasn't overwritten biology.
Young males without older successful male role models are at higher risk for nearly everything: dropping out of school, criminal misconduct, criminal violence, etc. Our misguided war against masculinity has now generational consequences across society: economic, social, quality of life, crime and violence, and more. The toxic lack of masculinity is what harms both individuals and their communities.
Being a naturalist, or to use Michael McConkey's term a "biological realist" the idea that there aren't difference to be found given that we are a sexually reproducing dimorphic species seems absurd to me. If the cathedral wasn't so hopelessly corrupted by ideological denial of biological sex differences then I imagine the empirical data to support the position you outline would be exceedingly easy to aggregate. I'm sure it can still be done, and I've seen people like Thomas Sowell make such arguments, but a quick google search will inundate you with propaganda saying how there isn't enough information to know for sure. Thanks for sharing, I appreciate your thoughts as always!
Jun 11, 2022·edited Jun 11, 2022Liked by Grant Smith
Stories have a way of driving a point home. It's easy to picture the boy in your story - a youngling walking in admiration of the men in his life, stunned when one of his mentors catalyzes the realization that to cross the barrier between his childhood state and his manhood he must adopt candid self-awareness in the relentless pursuit of the attributes that will help him obtain honor, strength, resources, and perhaps a wife and children of his own. This particular flavor of masculinity is quite endearing, and, to use a story to drive my own point home, hints at notes from The Lion King, The Jungle Book, and others.
I am a woman who considers herself very feminine despite some traditionally masculine inclinations, and I motivate myself with the phrase DBAP regularly. You mention in your article here that you can promise many women use this phrase successfully to motivate themselves to do difficult things. Since your newsletter speaks to performance optimization in the military, I'm sure you considered female usage of the term DBAP within the context of women in the service. But as a mother, a woman of a different sort of service, I have found the phrase to be internally motivating on mornings I feel tempted to linger in bed when my kids are are eating paper books and begging to color on the walls before I've had my first cup of coffee. Personally I do not understand the controversy around the phrase. It's as much a mantra as "all is well," as far as I'm concerned.
To be fair, as I mentioned before, I am a feminine woman who does enjoy many stereotypically masculine things. I practically get off to movies and books about glory, gore, and honor, I play the drums, I play jiu-jitsu, I pump iron, I cuss in jest and in anger, I'll enjoy my beer, but I savor my scotch, a good political debate is a preferred pastime to a trip to the salon, there's no joke too offensive for me, and I've been known to pewn some newbs on xbox live. So I understand the argument that I am only comfortable with this phrase because of what amounts to "a personality thing." But, to be blunt, I think it's more of a character thing. When I was a young girl, I was known to complain, whine, or lie my way out of challenging situations, but just as you wanted to become a man, I wanted to transcend my childish ways and enter the domain of womanhood. I will not claim that the world of masculinity is the same as the world of femininity or that a woman once told me not to be a pussy as if it were a requirement for coming into feminine maturity. Rather, along the way to my present state, I gained an appreciation for the sentiment behind the phrase you discuss here, only without the words for the phrase itself. As I grew, I recognized my own flaws in stark contrast to the people (men and women) I admired, but what was unique about the women I wanted to emulate is that although they were the cremé de la cremé in a world apart from the world of masculinity, they were able to interact with men, for better or for worse, with grace, without griping bitterly about the cruelty of nature to have made us all different. They were masters in the art of tenderness, but were mountains in a windstorm when the time came. A scene from an old Western (I'll edit this post if I can remember which one) comes to mind as an example of one thing that got the gears turning in my own mind during my adolescence. A woman was being threatened with rape by thugs that were terrorizing her town and she said to them (paraphrasing), "Go ahead. When you're through, all I'll need is a pot of boiling water and I'll be exactly as I was before." Meaning, of course, that she could withstand any torment, would not be intimidated, and would not spend her life tormented by the past. She would set herself right, she had the ultimate power to do so. This is one example of many I could give of the best of archetypical women behind why I think comfort with the phrase DBAP is a character thing - because getting comfortable with it first requires that you are an open vessel for its usefulness in whatever you endeavor to endure. Thankfully, most people have the capacity to embrace this power statement, or others, if they choose. Humans are resilient and versatile, after all. But I argue that those advocating for it's abolishment the loudest need it's message the most.
I could get into points on the hypocrisy inherent to PC...how preaching against DBAP but not the social modulator "don't be a dick" is yet another example of pathetic pandering, but I'm typing on a phone and my little thumbs are sore....owy!!!!!
Anyway, I'm a fan of DBAP. It strikes at internal fear, the mind killer, the freedom destroyer, the doom bringer, and it calls will into action. It's a tool, use it if it works, sheesh. And, bonus round, it's much catchier than Mike Tyson's "IFYTYLMF."
To take this in a different direction, one not endorsed by H2F Man: What's worse than "toxic masculinity"? The toxic lack of masculinity. You benefitted from having strong role models. Men who were "down-to-earth" as my generation would say -- "based" is the new term, good at what they did, and comfortable in their own skins. We have now generations of young males growing up with absent fathers -- and with a general lack of functional adult males in their lives.
So these young males do not learn to deal with difficult situations and work through them. They do not understand that setbacks are normal -- and easily overcome. They do not understand the need for sacrifice, for self-discipline, to reach goals and obtain success. They are told everything should be easy, and that they are entitled to everything now -- right now. So they lash out. Behave anti-socially. Behave violently. In part, the denial of their biological masculinity was the foundation for these dysfunctional behaviors.
Testosterone is real. It affects body and brain development. For virtually all known species of mammals, the males take higher risks. Have shorter life-spans and/or proportionally diminish in relation to females as they age. In humans, we know the Pre-frontal cortex (the "executive" decision-making part of our brain & consciousness) takes on average longer to develop in males than in females. All other things being equal, we should expect young males to be predisposed to behave as they have throughout human history. Wokeness hasn't overwritten biology.
Young males without older successful male role models are at higher risk for nearly everything: dropping out of school, criminal misconduct, criminal violence, etc. Our misguided war against masculinity has now generational consequences across society: economic, social, quality of life, crime and violence, and more. The toxic lack of masculinity is what harms both individuals and their communities.
Being a naturalist, or to use Michael McConkey's term a "biological realist" the idea that there aren't difference to be found given that we are a sexually reproducing dimorphic species seems absurd to me. If the cathedral wasn't so hopelessly corrupted by ideological denial of biological sex differences then I imagine the empirical data to support the position you outline would be exceedingly easy to aggregate. I'm sure it can still be done, and I've seen people like Thomas Sowell make such arguments, but a quick google search will inundate you with propaganda saying how there isn't enough information to know for sure. Thanks for sharing, I appreciate your thoughts as always!
Stories have a way of driving a point home. It's easy to picture the boy in your story - a youngling walking in admiration of the men in his life, stunned when one of his mentors catalyzes the realization that to cross the barrier between his childhood state and his manhood he must adopt candid self-awareness in the relentless pursuit of the attributes that will help him obtain honor, strength, resources, and perhaps a wife and children of his own. This particular flavor of masculinity is quite endearing, and, to use a story to drive my own point home, hints at notes from The Lion King, The Jungle Book, and others.
I am a woman who considers herself very feminine despite some traditionally masculine inclinations, and I motivate myself with the phrase DBAP regularly. You mention in your article here that you can promise many women use this phrase successfully to motivate themselves to do difficult things. Since your newsletter speaks to performance optimization in the military, I'm sure you considered female usage of the term DBAP within the context of women in the service. But as a mother, a woman of a different sort of service, I have found the phrase to be internally motivating on mornings I feel tempted to linger in bed when my kids are are eating paper books and begging to color on the walls before I've had my first cup of coffee. Personally I do not understand the controversy around the phrase. It's as much a mantra as "all is well," as far as I'm concerned.
To be fair, as I mentioned before, I am a feminine woman who does enjoy many stereotypically masculine things. I practically get off to movies and books about glory, gore, and honor, I play the drums, I play jiu-jitsu, I pump iron, I cuss in jest and in anger, I'll enjoy my beer, but I savor my scotch, a good political debate is a preferred pastime to a trip to the salon, there's no joke too offensive for me, and I've been known to pewn some newbs on xbox live. So I understand the argument that I am only comfortable with this phrase because of what amounts to "a personality thing." But, to be blunt, I think it's more of a character thing. When I was a young girl, I was known to complain, whine, or lie my way out of challenging situations, but just as you wanted to become a man, I wanted to transcend my childish ways and enter the domain of womanhood. I will not claim that the world of masculinity is the same as the world of femininity or that a woman once told me not to be a pussy as if it were a requirement for coming into feminine maturity. Rather, along the way to my present state, I gained an appreciation for the sentiment behind the phrase you discuss here, only without the words for the phrase itself. As I grew, I recognized my own flaws in stark contrast to the people (men and women) I admired, but what was unique about the women I wanted to emulate is that although they were the cremé de la cremé in a world apart from the world of masculinity, they were able to interact with men, for better or for worse, with grace, without griping bitterly about the cruelty of nature to have made us all different. They were masters in the art of tenderness, but were mountains in a windstorm when the time came. A scene from an old Western (I'll edit this post if I can remember which one) comes to mind as an example of one thing that got the gears turning in my own mind during my adolescence. A woman was being threatened with rape by thugs that were terrorizing her town and she said to them (paraphrasing), "Go ahead. When you're through, all I'll need is a pot of boiling water and I'll be exactly as I was before." Meaning, of course, that she could withstand any torment, would not be intimidated, and would not spend her life tormented by the past. She would set herself right, she had the ultimate power to do so. This is one example of many I could give of the best of archetypical women behind why I think comfort with the phrase DBAP is a character thing - because getting comfortable with it first requires that you are an open vessel for its usefulness in whatever you endeavor to endure. Thankfully, most people have the capacity to embrace this power statement, or others, if they choose. Humans are resilient and versatile, after all. But I argue that those advocating for it's abolishment the loudest need it's message the most.
I could get into points on the hypocrisy inherent to PC...how preaching against DBAP but not the social modulator "don't be a dick" is yet another example of pathetic pandering, but I'm typing on a phone and my little thumbs are sore....owy!!!!!
Anyway, I'm a fan of DBAP. It strikes at internal fear, the mind killer, the freedom destroyer, the doom bringer, and it calls will into action. It's a tool, use it if it works, sheesh. And, bonus round, it's much catchier than Mike Tyson's "IFYTYLMF."