Taking the Measure of Man
The following is a condensed version of "Taking the Measure of Man" by Rachel Lu, published at Law & Liberty.
Sometimes, a book manages to impress simply by exceeding low expectations. Senator Josh Hawley’s Manhood was, for me, such a book. I flipped the front cover bracing myself for tendentious diatribes against feminism and bitter rants about dissolute “elites” but to my surprise, the word “feminism” did not even appear in the index. The rants were relatively few and restrained. Manhood is clearly a politician’s book, not a book book, but I struggled to work up much indignation about this cozy little serving of chicken soup for the masculine soul.
My friend Elizabeth Matthew had a more negative impression. She did discern in Hawley’s book an unseemly amount of victim-mongering, and a worrisome reluctance to encourage men to adapt to the needs of their time. I sympathize, but I still hesitate to condemn his position outright. Hawley’s traditional view contains some important truths. As a traditionalist, he exemplifies a particular paradigm, with its own strengths and deficiencies. Here I will contrast his view with that of Richard Reeves, a social scientist of the Brookings Institute, whose recent book Of Boys and Men approaches similar questions from a very different perspective.
How Like a God
“What makes a man?” asks the inside jacket of Manhood. The question is certainly pressing, so it’s disappointing that Hawley never answers it. His book is full of claims about men: they should have self-discipline, set worthwhile life goals, make commitments, and defend liberty, justice, and truth. All of that sounds excellent, but it prompts a further question. Wouldn’t this be sound advice for any rational being? Where is the vir in this account of virtue?
Sometimes it is fine to pitch solid life advice to a particular audience. Hawley’s effort may not seem so benign, though, when considered in the context of his larger dialectic. Though he doesn’t mention feminism specifically, Hawley does pile a lot of blame on misguided ideology (a mash-up of gender theory, Marxism, hedonism, and nihilism), and it’s reasonable to worry that he is stoking masculine resentment, even without explicit diatribes against feminism. A better book might start by answering his own opening question: What is a man? What can men uniquely offer to the world?
Even though the book is relatively superficial, however, Hawley does effectively communicate some important truths about manhood. He knows that manly virtue is difficult. He knows that young men need to be accepted and affirmed in certain ways, while also being encouraged to transcend the baser aspects of their nature. Hawley wants his ideals of manhood to be presented to boys as both good and aspirational. Across years of raising boys, I have come to see this as a critical component of their moral development. Boys yearn for nobility. They thrill to the epic adventure, the lofty calling, the honorable fight. It isn’t always necessary for the fulfillment of that desire to be intensely gendered, but boys do have a yearning to see manhood as something intrinsically meaningful. This is not wrong.
Just the Way You Are
“As a policy wonk,” says Reeves in the introduction to his book, On Boys and Men, “I feel equipped to offer some ideas to tackle these problems, rather than simply lamenting them. There has been enough handwringing.” He fulfills the promise. Over the course of the book, he calls attention to some of the unique challenges of boys and men while also encouraging them (and society at large) to relinquish certain masculine ideals that he considers maladaptive in our time. Reeves has real policy recommendations. He wants us to value men as fathers and not just as breadwinners. Encourage men to consider teaching or nursing as eligible career paths. “Redshirt” boys in grade school, to give their prefrontal cortexes extra time to develop. Recruit mature men into professions (such as elementary education and counseling) where they might serve as helpful mentors to growing boys.
Reeves tries hard to refrain from either scolding or exhorting men. He wants to focus on understanding their problems, and to that end, the book details many grim statistics that have gone largely unnoticed by society at large. Why did policymakers obsess over the negative effects of the Covid pandemic on women’s careers, while barely bothering to note that men were actually dying in larger numbers? Why has no one noticed that social and educational programs designed to help poor or disadvantaged citizens, have been spectacularly ineffective at helping men? Why has so little been done to help boys excel in school, when it has long been recognized that they are falling behind?
Reeves is willing to acknowledge that some differences between men and women are natural and rooted in biology. He understands that men, more than women, rely on culture and community to teach them what goods and activities are proper to their sex. Here though, he flounders a bit, precisely because he has already made clear that he is not in the business of establishing norms. He shrugs at video games and pornography, and seems loathe to lay any particular demands on young men. Understanding the reasons, this still feels like a shortcoming. Don’t boys want to be challenged to man up and do hard things?
Coming from dramatically different perspectives, Hawley and Reeves have some worthwhile insights. Is it possible that we can find a healthy masculinity somewhere between the church pews and the data analysis? I often wonder, but these books gave me a bit of hope.
Rachel Lu is an Associate Editor at Law & Liberty and a Contributing Writer at America Magazine. After studying moral philosophy at Cornell, she taught for several years before retiring to focus on the moral formation of her own five sons. She writes on politics, culture, religion, and parenting.
