This post is part two of a three part series. Click here for part one and part three.
‘How do we know what Masculinity is?’
In order to understand masculinity there needs to be a clear and distinct method to examine the question.
Without a consistent method, anyone could shout out an answer:
Masculinity is about physical strength and bravery!
Masculinity is about mental strength and mindfulness!
Masculinity is about having sex with women!
Masculinity is about chastity and virtue!
Masculinity is anything a guy does!
Masculinity is lie! It doesn’t exist!
No discussion occurs when people shout their belief. Only conflict and argument arises. In order to talk about something as polarizing as masculinity, there needs to be a proper method.
The Method:
There are seven core ways that someone can come to understand masculinity.
Personal Experiences
Shared Experiences
Personal Ideals
Shared Ideals
Empirical Sciences
Deliberation
Revelation
Personal Experiences:
Each male understands something of manhood and the masculine in his daily life. He sees the world from his own perspective and experiences the world from this vantage.
Yet, just living in the world as a male is insufficient. We do not learn through mere experience. We learn by reflecting on our experiences. If a man does not reflect upon the events of his life, he will continue to make the same mistake. How many times must a man experience pain before he learns? How many times must a man experience heartbreak before he loves? How many times must a man experience failure before he succeeds?
Observe the world, your behaviour, and the behaviours of others toward you. Then reflect upon those experiences. Only then will you have your first insight on what it means to be a man.
Shared Experiences:
While your own perspective of masculinity will be limited, the experiences of other men will help you gain a better understanding. The experiences of others will present guidelines of behaviour. Some of their stories will teach you the proper conduct of a man, while others will show you what to avoid.
In addition, the experiences of other men will allow you to understand your own successes and failures, as well as challenge you to achieve more. The road to manhood follows a path of continual challenge from other men. A boy only becomes a man through communal initiations. If he passes them, he shall be recognized as a man.
Personal Ideals:
Listening to other men might be a way to learn about the joys and challenges of masculinity, but it might not be enough to inspire and orient yourself. This change requires role models.
Your role models will be the templates that shape you into the man you will be. Your ideals are the blueprint by which you build your future. Thus, be careful in who you call your heroes, for you will become like them.
When choosing role models, select several. One of your examples might only be successful in one domain, but a failure in another. By having several role models, you will be able to see the glory of each man in the light of the others without their individual failings. In their combination, your ideal will be made even clearer and your goal ever more powerful.
Their stories will guide you in your own journey.
Cultural Ideals:
Like it or not, each of us live in a particular community. This community will have its own written and unwritten expectations for its members. These values are given and reinforced in various aspects of daily behaviour. These values set the limits of acceptable action and speech. While these ideals may bother you at times, it is important to acknowledge how they have shaped you and your values.
While some communities might have healthier conceptions of masculinity, do not create a great disturbance against your communal values. Unless you are willing to become a hermit and live in the desert, you need to function within your community. If you want to change the values of that community, work within it and change it through your example of excellence.
Your community shapes you as you shape it.
Empirical Sciences:
Several scientific domains provide insight in what it means to be man by observing the physical world and relations. The most important of these sciences would be biology and psychology.
The value of biology resides in the examination of various physical and chemical components that affect males. By understanding the physical functions and their causes, men can understand themselves at the level of an animal. One should come to understand the role that androgens and estrogens affect the development of the body, or how dopamine changes the structure of the brain to build habits. These primal lessons provide key insights into the functions of males and females, even if the scope is limited to the animal kingdom.
The value of psychology resides in the way humans have taken up these biological cues and understanding and applied it to their personal and communal way of life. If a man wishes to succeed in a certain aspect of life, knowing the psychological dimension of this battle may make it easier win. For example, male depression should not be treated as though it were female depression; females want to be loved, while males want to feel powerful.
While these sciences can help explain aspects of our maleness and our mentality, other domains, such as anthropology or sociology, can provide valuable insight as well. At the end of the day, however, science can only describe the world as it appears to us; it is not a source of genuine moral value.
Deliberation:
By deliberation, I mean your ability to reason. While the other ways may provide information, only by working through these pieces of information can any of it make sense and form a coherent whole. In fact, in many cases, these different ways might conflict and contradict each other. Only by thinking through each of these ways can your affirm what is correct and reject what is false. Without deliberation, you will believe a large collection of things that resist fitting together. Your perspective will shaped by a mixture of truths and lies.
In addition, proper deliberation allows you to produce more accurate and powerful reflections from your own experiences and those of others. Sometimes the lesson you have drawn from an event has been the wrong one. Only through careful reasoning and well-structured conversations with your friends will you ensure the right lessons have been learned.
Revelation:
Revelation belongs to the spiritual dimension of man. While the secular world has dismissed the religious or the spiritual as irrational or fantastical, the spiritual drive of man is undeniable. Nevertheless, different faith traditions will draw from different sources and reach different conclusions.
As a Christian-oriented blog, the revelations of masculinity are found most explicitly in the life of Jesus. Alongside his words and actions, are the those of the men, especially the prophets, of the Old Testament, and those of the apostles and saints who lived the New Testament.
Since religious revelation stands firm and unalterable, it is required for a solid and unshakeable understanding of oneself, the world, and the world to come.
Conclusion:
These seven ways allow a man to understand himself, his world, and his relation to it.
When all of these ways come to together, a man will finally be able to understand the true essence of the masculine.
Click here for part three.