Like both of you, Janice and David, I’m very ambivalent about this topic. The spontaneity of what I’ve read suggests to me that I should respond spontaneously. What follow are impressions, therefore, not a carefully constructed argument.
Although I had thought anxiously since childhood about what would eventually become my special area of research—men, masculinity, maleness and misandry—it was only in 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, that I resolved to explore all this in a focused way. But not yet. I was living in New York, and the war’s implications for me, for men, were still too emotionally fraught. Even though I opposed the war and diligently read Ramparts from cover to cover every month, my reasons had nothing to do with hawks and doves or Geneva conventions. I seldom attended sit-ins, and I was very uncomfortable when I did. I agreed with these people, see, but I couldn’t stand being in the same room with them. I found them, in a word, arrogant. And they expressed not the slightest interest in what troubled me most. It wasn’t the war but the draft, which applied only to men—and to men by virtue of maleness, not masculine attitudes or aptitudes. These guys all opposed the draft, sure, but only for the most respectable political or ideological reasons—not, of course, because they felt personally threatened by regimentation and death or morally astonished by this form of sexual inequality. It wasn’t cool for men to feel personally threatened or astonished. Being cool had something to do with bravado, with knowing what was comme il faut and therefore being in control of your life. But I, being gay (though understanding almost nothing about that except feeling attracted to some people without liking them), had no sense of being in control. In 1969, I left New York and returned to Canada feeling confused and defeated.
By 1985, on the tenth anniversary of that war’s end and after rejecting several alienating professions, I realized that it was time to do what I truly needed to do: figure out what it meant to be a man, whether I liked it or not, and why. Although I’ve moved far from some of my early ideas about manhood, war is one of the few that remain central.
I mention this here, because it explains my strong sense that the war between men and women can be understood best as a primarily collective and cultural phenomenon, not a personal and emotional one (although some people, for personal reasons, really do dislike other people and therefore want to afflict them). Yes, it is a war. I’m not sure when women declared war, probably when the MeToo movement broke out and vigilantism came out of the shadows. The weapons are words, laws and public policies, not guns and bombs, but the effects are deadly. The aim is revolution, after all, not reform. The goal is to destroy society itself (and, as I’ve realized more recently, every vestige of Western civilization), not only specific combatants. Unless you’re a pacifist, the rules change in wartime—including the moral rules that govern us in peacetime. I admire and even envy pacifists, but I’m not one of them. From the perspective of men, whether they have the courage to admit it or not, this is a war of self-defense and therefore what centuries of philosophers have called a “just war.”
From there, my mind wanders to the current war in Gaza. No one would ever call me a knee-jerk defender of every Israeli policy. I’ve never even thought of myself as a Zionist. But I do think that the double standard, which so many people apply to Israel, is both contemptible and destructive. These people are not necessarily anti-Semitic in any religious or racial sense; many of them really are anti-Zionists, as they claim, but only because their secular religion (a term that I’ve defined in detail elsewhere) is anti-Westernism. But my point here is that, for me, this is a just war for Israel. I can see no good for either side that could possibly come from a victory for Hamas. Therefore, I must accept a lamentable fact of life in wartime: some people or many people, including children, will suffer and die. This means that I support Israel in fighting as long as it takes to achieve the just goal of self-defense—but the quicker the better (to mitigate suffering). I wouldn’t introduce this controversy if it were not for the fact that Janice and David have been discussing the motivation of those who oppose feminism (at least the combination of gynocentrism and misandry).
What could it mean to talk about feeling compassion for feminists? Pity, perhaps, but why compassion? That would inevitably dilute the courage that we need to defeat evil. David says that he really means empathy, not compassion. Maybe that’s better than compassion, in this context, but only f it refers to knowledge (how feminists think), not emotion. Once again, that would compromise our ability to defeat a profoundly destructive ideology. (Actually, it’s no longer one ideology but a congeries of allied ideologies. All are closely related; only the names of targets differ from one to another.) Worse, it would confuse men hopelessly. They’re still mired in notions of chivalry, which make them wonder what’s wrong with them for not instinctively rushing to defend women at all costs. (Chivalry is not universal and therefore not instinctual. In the West, it was the product of an aristocratic class and revolved around, among other things, either pity or condescension toward the powerless—including the serfs.) I think that men deserve an explanation for what’s happening to them. And I think that the explanation is not one that will, or should, leave everyone singing Kumbaya.
Peacetime is another matter. If we manage to defeat the very powerful and destructive ideology of feminism (and of wokism or anti-Westernism under its many names), that will be the time for empathy and even compassion. The defeat of ideology, after all, will leave many people on all sides ready to seek and even ask for a better way of life than rage and revenge. I can’t prove that, of course, but it’s a possibility.
I know it sounds silly, but I really can imagine the UN, at some point, resolving that men must provide humanitarian assistance to women because of the war on feminism. There would also be a lot of waffling about combatants and 'innocent' civilians if DEI (Didn't Earn It) departments, gender studies departments, etc. started getting axed.
Paul, I confess that my use of the word "compassion" is problematic. I don't know of a word that precisely defines what I mean. I mean by compassion for women that we "get" the legitimacy of women's issues, even while we recognize the illegitimacy of feminism. This difficulty with words is a pattern with me: I use "evil" without meaning it in moral terms, for instance, and I use "Patriarchy" to describe something that is relatively rare in the West, the shadow form of the male competence hierarchy, unlike most on this substack who use it the way feminists mean it, as the dominant form of male governance in the West.
I find your use of language powerful and exquisitely nuanced David, so please don’t change anything on my behalf 😉
I’m exploring Buddhist concepts and getting a lot from them. I now hear “compassion” as connection - love, ultimately - for all people WHILE ALSO accepting that they are suffering from delusions. However that’s perhaps a stretch from the everyday “social justice warrior” mindset.
Thank you and Janice for a wonderful, gracious and creative conversation. I came away with st least time hope for a brighter future for humanity. I will reread it many times, and I look forward to your book David.
Thank you very much, David. I often struggle to find the right word, but I think that the struggle is worth it, it is an expression of how much I care about finding the right word.
Like both of you, Janice and David, I’m very ambivalent about this topic. The spontaneity of what I’ve read suggests to me that I should respond spontaneously. What follow are impressions, therefore, not a carefully constructed argument.
Although I had thought anxiously since childhood about what would eventually become my special area of research—men, masculinity, maleness and misandry—it was only in 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, that I resolved to explore all this in a focused way. But not yet. I was living in New York, and the war’s implications for me, for men, were still too emotionally fraught. Even though I opposed the war and diligently read Ramparts from cover to cover every month, my reasons had nothing to do with hawks and doves or Geneva conventions. I seldom attended sit-ins, and I was very uncomfortable when I did. I agreed with these people, see, but I couldn’t stand being in the same room with them. I found them, in a word, arrogant. And they expressed not the slightest interest in what troubled me most. It wasn’t the war but the draft, which applied only to men—and to men by virtue of maleness, not masculine attitudes or aptitudes. These guys all opposed the draft, sure, but only for the most respectable political or ideological reasons—not, of course, because they felt personally threatened by regimentation and death or morally astonished by this form of sexual inequality. It wasn’t cool for men to feel personally threatened or astonished. Being cool had something to do with bravado, with knowing what was comme il faut and therefore being in control of your life. But I, being gay (though understanding almost nothing about that except feeling attracted to some people without liking them), had no sense of being in control. In 1969, I left New York and returned to Canada feeling confused and defeated.
By 1985, on the tenth anniversary of that war’s end and after rejecting several alienating professions, I realized that it was time to do what I truly needed to do: figure out what it meant to be a man, whether I liked it or not, and why. Although I’ve moved far from some of my early ideas about manhood, war is one of the few that remain central.
I mention this here, because it explains my strong sense that the war between men and women can be understood best as a primarily collective and cultural phenomenon, not a personal and emotional one (although some people, for personal reasons, really do dislike other people and therefore want to afflict them). Yes, it is a war. I’m not sure when women declared war, probably when the MeToo movement broke out and vigilantism came out of the shadows. The weapons are words, laws and public policies, not guns and bombs, but the effects are deadly. The aim is revolution, after all, not reform. The goal is to destroy society itself (and, as I’ve realized more recently, every vestige of Western civilization), not only specific combatants. Unless you’re a pacifist, the rules change in wartime—including the moral rules that govern us in peacetime. I admire and even envy pacifists, but I’m not one of them. From the perspective of men, whether they have the courage to admit it or not, this is a war of self-defense and therefore what centuries of philosophers have called a “just war.”
From there, my mind wanders to the current war in Gaza. No one would ever call me a knee-jerk defender of every Israeli policy. I’ve never even thought of myself as a Zionist. But I do think that the double standard, which so many people apply to Israel, is both contemptible and destructive. These people are not necessarily anti-Semitic in any religious or racial sense; many of them really are anti-Zionists, as they claim, but only because their secular religion (a term that I’ve defined in detail elsewhere) is anti-Westernism. But my point here is that, for me, this is a just war for Israel. I can see no good for either side that could possibly come from a victory for Hamas. Therefore, I must accept a lamentable fact of life in wartime: some people or many people, including children, will suffer and die. This means that I support Israel in fighting as long as it takes to achieve the just goal of self-defense—but the quicker the better (to mitigate suffering). I wouldn’t introduce this controversy if it were not for the fact that Janice and David have been discussing the motivation of those who oppose feminism (at least the combination of gynocentrism and misandry).
What could it mean to talk about feeling compassion for feminists? Pity, perhaps, but why compassion? That would inevitably dilute the courage that we need to defeat evil. David says that he really means empathy, not compassion. Maybe that’s better than compassion, in this context, but only f it refers to knowledge (how feminists think), not emotion. Once again, that would compromise our ability to defeat a profoundly destructive ideology. (Actually, it’s no longer one ideology but a congeries of allied ideologies. All are closely related; only the names of targets differ from one to another.) Worse, it would confuse men hopelessly. They’re still mired in notions of chivalry, which make them wonder what’s wrong with them for not instinctively rushing to defend women at all costs. (Chivalry is not universal and therefore not instinctual. In the West, it was the product of an aristocratic class and revolved around, among other things, either pity or condescension toward the powerless—including the serfs.) I think that men deserve an explanation for what’s happening to them. And I think that the explanation is not one that will, or should, leave everyone singing Kumbaya.
Peacetime is another matter. If we manage to defeat the very powerful and destructive ideology of feminism (and of wokism or anti-Westernism under its many names), that will be the time for empathy and even compassion. The defeat of ideology, after all, will leave many people on all sides ready to seek and even ask for a better way of life than rage and revenge. I can’t prove that, of course, but it’s a possibility.
I know it sounds silly, but I really can imagine the UN, at some point, resolving that men must provide humanitarian assistance to women because of the war on feminism. There would also be a lot of waffling about combatants and 'innocent' civilians if DEI (Didn't Earn It) departments, gender studies departments, etc. started getting axed.
Absolutely that could happen!
Paul, I confess that my use of the word "compassion" is problematic. I don't know of a word that precisely defines what I mean. I mean by compassion for women that we "get" the legitimacy of women's issues, even while we recognize the illegitimacy of feminism. This difficulty with words is a pattern with me: I use "evil" without meaning it in moral terms, for instance, and I use "Patriarchy" to describe something that is relatively rare in the West, the shadow form of the male competence hierarchy, unlike most on this substack who use it the way feminists mean it, as the dominant form of male governance in the West.
I find your use of language powerful and exquisitely nuanced David, so please don’t change anything on my behalf 😉
I’m exploring Buddhist concepts and getting a lot from them. I now hear “compassion” as connection - love, ultimately - for all people WHILE ALSO accepting that they are suffering from delusions. However that’s perhaps a stretch from the everyday “social justice warrior” mindset.
Thank you and Janice for a wonderful, gracious and creative conversation. I came away with st least time hope for a brighter future for humanity. I will reread it many times, and I look forward to your book David.
Thank you very much, David. I often struggle to find the right word, but I think that the struggle is worth it, it is an expression of how much I care about finding the right word.