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Why Masculinity Matters More Than Ever · UK Column Radio

0:38
Why are we talking about masculinity in 2025?
0:45
Well, no one had to talk about masculinity when it was the
0:51
norm. You know what masculinity was.
0:53
Everyone was just, there were certain expectations of society
0:57
and that was no one talked about masculinity.
1:01
And then what happened is that, you know, there's this long
1:05
train of things that happen, obviously the industrial
1:08
revolution and feminism and all these things that slowly took
1:11
men away from certain kinds of roles and put them in this
1:15
protected space. You could almost call it a child
1:18
space, like where they don't have to deal with the defence of
1:22
things. They don't have to.
1:24
They're taken care of. You know, modern life,
1:26
masculinity is fairly optional unless you live in a place that
1:30
is in conflict or, or a bad neighborhood or something like
1:34
that. But in modern life, masculinity
1:36
is somewhat optional. So men are taken care of in much
1:40
the same way that women always have been.
1:42
So they can afford to, you know, run their mouths and know that
1:45
no one's going to hit them. And they can they can do all
1:48
this passive aggressive behavior.
1:50
And so this has just gone through, moved through culture
1:56
over, you know, decades and decades.
1:59
And what happened is that you saw this with the, the gender
2:03
theory things that I I saw in the 90s, but then became very
2:09
big just recently with all the trans things and so forth.
2:13
And all these people, all these feminists were working for a few
2:17
decades of redefining masculinity and talking about
2:21
masculinity and making it negative and saying that it
2:25
doesn't exist, saying that it's not real.
2:27
And these are all products of Marxism and queer theory and
2:30
gender studies and so forth. And no one, those people were
2:35
all under the radar until about like 2010.
2:39
And no one talked about masculinity because no one
2:42
needed to. And then all of a sudden, you
2:43
know, these people started to gain influence and we started to
2:48
see a lot, a lot more in mainstream culture.
2:50
And so then you had people saying ridiculous things about
2:54
men and masculinity and all of a sudden people started to wake
2:57
up. And really when the trans thing
2:59
became reached its peak, then you we're which we're past peak
3:05
right now, which is nice. But when it reached its peak,
3:08
you had a whole bunch of people saying, you know, men and women
3:11
didn't exist. All these things didn't exist.
3:13
And so it became very necessary. And that was why I wrote The Way
3:16
of Men earlier. It I saw that problem happening
3:19
is that men couldn't articulate what masculinity is.
3:22
And so you have all these gender studies PhDs who are then
3:25
articulating it for them, you know, with their own agenda and
3:28
pasting it onto it. And men needed to be able to
3:30
articulate masculinity in a coherent way.
3:34
And that was my project with The Way of Men.
3:37
So it sounds like you're talking about postmodernism.
3:40
Postmodernism being quite destructive.
3:44
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And postmodernism obviously just
3:47
a reaction to to modernism and disappoint, the disappointment
3:51
in modernism, I think if that's the real, that's what
3:53
postmodernism really is, right? Like the collapse of meaning
3:56
that was really foreseen by Nietzsche in a certain way.
3:59
Who is Jack Donovan? A 50 year old man.
4:12
Yes, but you are a lot fitter. You're a lot fitter than every
4:16
other 50 year old men that I know.
4:19
I do try. I do try.
4:20
And I think it's important because I write around about
4:22
masculinity. I try to at least exemplify some
4:25
things. I mean, you can't, you can't be
4:27
the exemplar for all things masculine.
4:30
I, I got into, I, I started writing about masculinity
4:33
because I, it was interesting to me as a topic and I really
4:36
wanted to understand what it was.
4:38
Most men who talk about masculinity are marketing,
4:43
they're talking about their masculinity.
4:45
They're like putting themselves forward as the exemplar of
4:48
masculinity. And you see that, you know, all
4:50
over the Internet now. I mean, you really didn't have
4:52
that as much like when I wrote the way of men.
4:54
But now there's all these guys being like, here's what you need
4:57
to do to be man like me. And, you know, and that's what
5:02
most of this masculinity discourse is now.
5:04
Or you have like, you know, priests and pastors and things
5:07
like that. Being like, this is how you need
5:09
to be a man for God or all these, all these everyone wants
5:12
to everyone wants to capitalize on male insecurity is the real
5:18
price is what's really happening is they've no one wanted to talk
5:21
to men or care what happened to them until they realized that
5:24
there was money there and that now they can find different ways
5:28
to make men insecure. And advertisers used this a long
5:30
time ago being you want to sell a truck, Here's what you do to
5:33
sell it to men. But now there's all these men's
5:37
coaches and all the all, all these people selling men did
5:41
their way to be masculinity. But when I wrote the web and I
5:45
just had a project, I've been like, let's let's figure out
5:48
what this is. And it's not about me being it's
5:50
not like about be like me. But I, I to answer your
5:54
question, I guess I'm a 50 year old man who I went to, I went to
6:01
art school. I was probably a feminist when I
6:04
was, you know, a young kid, you know, like certainly I mean, I
6:09
was, I was probably a liberal and a feminist.
6:10
Like I went to art school. What do you think?
6:13
I also went to art school. Yeah.
6:16
Well, yeah, there you go. You know, so I mean, I, so I
6:20
came at this from a different angle than I think a lot of
6:23
people come at. But that's why I think I was
6:25
able to articulate it better than that.
6:27
So, you know, I, yeah, I lived in New York and San Francisco
6:30
and LA and really it was only in my 30s that I became really
6:35
interested in masculinity and what, what maybe I had missed in
6:39
believing everything that they told me about men and that men
6:42
were bad and masculinity was out outdated and out of fashion and
6:47
old and whatever. And so when I began revisiting
6:51
that for myself, that's when I started becoming interested in
6:54
this, this project of understanding masculinity
6:57
better. And so, you know, I started
7:00
talking about it as a good thing and someone was reading my work
7:05
and saying that I wasn't defining it very well.
7:07
I'm like saying to being a man is good, but you're not, you're
7:10
not really saying anything like you're not defining it.
7:13
And that's why I wrote the way of Men.
7:15
So that's, I guess me in a nutshell.
7:18
You know, I, the, the older I get, the more I think I, I'm
7:21
like, I should have just been an artist.
7:23
But you know, I was trying to draw for the past like 3 or 4
7:28
days I've been, I've been working on that.
7:30
So that's really my background. I care about, you know, beauty
7:34
and, and, and articulating these ideas in a different way, in a
7:40
visual sense. And, and I think that that's
7:42
that's always been part of who I am.
7:43
So obviously you said, you know, like you like my set, whatever,
7:47
and I have a different visual presentation than I think a lot
7:49
of people do when they talk about masculinity, but.
7:54
Well, yeah, Jack, what is masculinity?
7:59
What is masculinity? That that is the question.
8:04
And my answer to what is masculinity is that it's when
8:11
we're talking about it, we're talking about masculinity.
8:13
We're talking about the way we perceive each other, maybe
8:17
without even words, The way you can walk into a room and you can
8:22
kind of rate masculinity among a group of men without having them
8:27
even talk. You can by their body language.
8:31
And, and so to understand what that thing was, that thing that
8:35
we can, what are we sensing that we can't necessarily put our
8:39
finger on? I, I was like, well, what are
8:44
we, what cues are we reading? And what I came around to was
8:50
that we're reading the primal cues that we would have needed
8:57
through most of human history. You know, men have what have men
9:01
been doing for thousands and thousands and thousands of
9:04
years? And my answer is that in the
9:10
scope of human evolution, most of the time men have been
9:12
working in groups together and they hunting and fighting.
9:18
And that's most of our human evolutionary history.
9:20
The idea that we go to an office is, is very new.
9:24
For most of human history, men work together.
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They, you know, had to take down big prey.
9:31
They had to protect their village from invading village
9:33
villages. That's pretty consistent.
9:37
And it's consistent across the whole world.
9:40
And so you have these hunting and fighting gangs and what
9:45
masculinity is like. The core primal element of
9:47
masculinity is what do these men need from each other?
9:51
Like what are they? How are they evaluating each
9:53
other as men? And so that's why how I came
9:57
around to the tactical virtues like what, what do, what do men
10:00
who are hunting and fighting together, What do they need from
10:02
each other? And I came up with strength,
10:06
courage, mastery and honor. You could rename them.
10:08
You could do all kinds of things, but they're they're good
10:10
general rules of thumb for talking about.
10:14
Well, what are we seeing in men? Like is he strong?
10:17
Is he capable? Is he physically capable?
10:20
You can walk in a room and see that with, with division and you
10:25
know, is he courageous or is he cowardly?
10:28
You can see that body language to a certain extent between
10:31
different men. And you know, these are all
10:33
cues. It's like, oh, well, that that
10:35
guy is a threat. That guy is not a threat.
10:38
Like we, we see all these things and our body sees them, you
10:41
know, in the way that, you know, if you have dogs, like they,
10:43
they know which they know what's going on with.
10:45
They don't understand what you're saying at all, but they
10:47
know what's going on. Like we have that too.
10:49
Like we, we sense things from each other that aren't
10:52
necessarily we don't have to articulate to see them.
10:54
And that's why now we have when you see AI, you get into the
10:58
uncanny valley because a you, you'll see something like that's
11:02
not a human thing. Like that's off, like that's the
11:05
we, we can sense something's wrong there.
11:07
And so you have strength, courage, mastery, like, you
11:11
know, capability, like what can, what can, what can someone do?
11:14
Men appreciate virtuosity, I think more than if you're really
11:20
good at something, men really, you know, it doesn't, you don't
11:24
have to be like, women have to worry about being pretty.
11:26
They have to worry about all these other things.
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Men are like, wow, he's really good at this one thing and they
11:31
can appreciate that just for that and that that gives a man
11:34
value and and it gives a man value to men.
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And where I think a lot of anthropologists and and
11:41
evolutionary biologists and so forth skip over because they're
11:45
always looking for how you're going to mate.
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Like everything's a mating competition with Mitha, those
11:50
kind of people. But I think that men pre screen
11:55
each other for women in, in terms of like men compete for
12:00
status with each other and then the highest status men get the,
12:05
the the choice of women. You know, like that's and I
12:08
think that when people don't talk about that as much, it
12:10
like, they just think we're competing like a little contest
12:13
for girls. And I think that men compete
12:15
with each other and they have their own status hierarchy.
12:18
And you can see this in the modern world, like men in
12:22
business. So we're like, he's a very
12:23
successful businessman. Therefore he's high status.
12:25
Therefore, when we want him, you know, it's not like they're
12:29
we're like racing each other to see who gets the girl.
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You know, like men have their whole like status hierarchy
12:35
without that. And then the obvious strength,
12:39
courage, mastery, and then honor is that you know what is a group
12:43
of men need from each other and that is loyalty and honor.
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Honor is essentially loyalty and showing that you care about your
12:52
reputation within a group of men.
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Now you can't care about every group of men, but honor is
12:58
basically like within this group of men, what is your reputation?
13:02
And if you, if you care about that and show that you care
13:05
about the group and what they think of you, then that that is
13:08
reciprocated. And if you say that you don't
13:10
care about what the group thinks, then you aren't
13:13
trustworthy. You know, like they can't trust
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you as a man if you don't care what they think of you as a man.
13:20
So those are the, the four tactical virtues that I've
13:23
talked about in the Way of Men. And, you know, I wrote that book
13:26
maybe like, I guess like 12 years ago now, and I still agree
13:30
with it. I, I think that the, it, it, it,
13:34
it continues to be correct in the way that, you know, men
13:37
behave. They, they, we are kind of pack
13:40
animals that we, we and that, and that's one of the biggest
13:43
problems. And maybe goes back to your
13:45
question about why are we talking about magic eliminity in
13:48
2025 is that we have is it wouldn't I should have almost
13:58
forgot where I was going to go with that.
14:00
But Oh yes, why are why are men insecure?
14:07
A lot of men are insecure and they're insecure.
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And, and that's why all these coaches and all these people can
14:13
sell them their different masculinity kind of products is
14:16
because men who are not validated by within a group of
14:21
men are more insecure. Like it.
14:25
We, we've spent our entire evolutionary history being like,
14:31
if these guys think I'm all right, then I'm OK.
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Like that's our identity. That's where we get our identity
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from. And and you can't get an
14:37
identity from an identity like that.
14:41
You can't get that from a woman because hey, also then if she
14:45
leaves you, then you're, you actually have nothing.
14:47
So that's bad. But there's a certain confidence
14:51
that comes with, OK, well, I have this group of guys who all
14:56
think I'm a good guy. They all respect me.
14:58
I've earned their respect in some way.
15:00
And men who have that have a different level of confidence
15:05
than men who don't have that. And so if men don't have that,
15:10
then they're looking for that kind of validation in some way.
15:14
And then so anyone who tries to sell them that validation that
15:19
they're very easy prey for that. Whereas if you have a bunch of
15:22
guys who think you're a cool guy, you maybe don't have to buy
15:25
this thing or buy this other thing or take this course or
15:27
whatever to show that you're a man because these other men
15:30
already think you're a man. You know, like these other men
15:33
always are. You already have validation with
15:35
that group. And, and so I think any, any way
15:37
that you can be kind of initiated and accepted into a
15:41
group of men or informally or formally that adds to your sense
15:47
of security as a, as a man in the world.
15:51
So I think that, you know, that's what men should really
15:53
seek out is if you don't have any kind of gang like that.
15:57
And it's really hard, it's really hard to find groups of
15:59
men in the real world. But that's, that's why I always
16:02
tell men, I, I mean, I do jiu jitsu.
16:05
That's one place where I was like, I OK, I, I have a
16:08
reputation like in that group, you know, like Jack was going to
16:12
do this, he's going to do this, he's going to do this, you know,
16:15
like he's, he's a hassle in this way.
16:17
But you know, this one person can get him in this thing every
16:20
time. You know, like I have this, you
16:22
know, like this is how he conducts himself, you know.
16:25
And so people recognize that when they come to the room,
16:28
whether it's good or bad, you know, like I have a reputation
16:31
within a group of men. And, you know, obviously in the,
16:33
in the larger world as an author, I have a reputation with
16:36
a group of men and I have a group that I, I run called the
16:39
Order of Fire. And so, but if you have none of
16:43
that, imagine a dude who had basically has no friends or just
16:47
has a few friends. Yeah, well, they're the, that's
16:50
a lot of guys. You know, like a lot of guys
16:52
don't have more than like, one or two people they can even
16:55
call. So I mean, that's the way the
16:58
modern world is because it keeps us all very separate, you know,
17:01
Like it's like, you know, Once Upon a time there are people who
17:05
still live where they grew up, you know, and that that's like,
17:08
OK, well, these are my friends from high school.
17:10
And I still see them at the mall, you know, or I still see
17:12
them wherever I go. But there are a lot of people
17:15
who, you know, they they move, you know, as I have like around
17:18
the world to different cities and so forth.
17:21
And yeah, they, they don't really have a connection with
17:24
anybody And, and you really have to go out of your way to build
17:27
it, you know, I mean, that was the goal, really.
17:30
Like what, What is always true about masculinity?
17:33
Because the, you know, the gender studies people and so
17:37
forth who were taking apart masculinity, they want to say,
17:41
oh, well, this is different here and this is different here.
17:43
And here, here are all the little differences between and
17:45
there are so many. I mean, you talk to different
17:47
groups of men and what type of car is OK for a man to drive or
17:52
whatever becomes so fluid, you know, like it's, it's so
17:56
different from group to group. But you know, they're they're
17:58
die guys who will die on that hill.
18:01
You know, like, no, a man should not drive this thing that you
18:05
know, and but that'll change from place to place that that
18:09
changes from social class to social class, group to group.
18:12
But what is always true and wherever you are in history and
18:18
wherever you are in the world now, they're always outliers in
18:21
like this weird Society of monks or whatever.
18:24
But if you take the mainstream of any culture that survived for
18:28
any length of time, would would, would any of those men say it's
18:37
better for a man to be weak? Like nowhere, nowhere is that
18:42
true. Like always and everywhere it is
18:46
better to be stronger as a man. Masculinity is directly
18:50
connected physically and and you know, whatever metaphorically to
18:56
strength. Is it better for a man to be a
19:00
coward? Like said no man anywhere, you
19:04
know, like that. No, men have never said
19:07
masculinity. One of the things that we we
19:10
value in men are, is cowardice. No one ever says that.
19:14
It doesn't matter if you're a Muslim.
19:16
It doesn't matter if you're Jewish.
19:17
It doesn't matter where you are. It's good for men to be
19:19
cowardly. No one says that ever.
19:22
You know, and, and The thing is these virtues, that's why that
19:26
was my criteria for them. Is this always true?
19:29
You know, and, and The thing is, is that women can have all those
19:32
qualities. A woman can be strong.
19:34
A woman can be courageous, warming.
19:37
They they can see. Yeah, no one cares.
19:38
Like, like they don't say that she's less of a woman if she
19:43
like no one says a woman is less of a woman because she's weak,
19:48
like physically weak. Like no one cares.
19:51
You know, a woman is less of a woman because she's coward.
19:55
No. Well, did she, she still makes
19:57
babies, right. You know, it's, it's, it's not,
20:02
it's, it's like a bonus thing that they can have.
20:04
You know, they, they can, they can be strong, they can be
20:07
courageous, they can be really good at things.
20:09
But as long as they're they're women, either way, you know that
20:15
that status. But if a a man is really weak
20:19
and really cowardly and you know, is always isn't really
20:23
good at anything and is always like, help me, help me, help me.
20:26
I'm not self-sufficient like men will think he's less of a man.
20:32
He he will be viewed as being less masculine.
20:34
And that's why I think these these virtues in this way of
20:37
looking at masculinity holds up because it holds up always and
20:41
everywhere for men. But it's also important to note
20:44
that the virtues that you're talking about are not the
20:47
caricatures that we see in Hollywood and in comics and that
20:50
sort of thing. It's not the caveman dragging a
20:53
woman or it's not. It's not a guy like Trump who
20:56
walks into a room and suddenly you assume that he's masculine
20:59
because that's also theatrics. You you're talking about
21:02
something a lot deeper. Yeah, I mean, there's, there is
21:08
theatrics is part of it. You know, like men, men can, men
21:12
can create that, you know, like, like George Washington was very,
21:15
very concerned about this is how I should be portrayed and this
21:18
is like how you should see me for history, you know?
21:22
But but yeah, I mean, there's there's big theatrical
21:28
confidence, which is kind of a marketing thing, I think is what
21:32
you're saying. And then there is, you know,
21:38
I'm, I'm just, I'm just secure. Yeah.
21:41
Yeah. Like you don't have to
21:42
necessarily be loud about it. In fact, you know, like it's
21:45
like there's that big thing of like people who men who are
21:48
always talking about being alpha.
21:51
Are probably that's where I was going.
21:52
That yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that.
21:54
Yeah. The, the, the big yeah, I hate
21:57
that word. I hate alpha.
21:59
Like that's I, I think that that's a signal.
22:01
It's a marketing word. I know why men use it and I
22:05
don't. I I've friends and guys who I
22:07
respect who use that as a marketing word because it's the
22:09
way you reach young men is like, say you want to be more alpha.
22:13
What they're really saying is you want to be more masculine
22:15
because alpha signifies a status in a group and male hierarchies
22:21
are flexible. You know what I always like?
22:26
I could be the alpha in the room and then Trump walks in and I'm
22:29
not the alpha in the room. You know, like it or whoever
22:32
isn't has the most power becomes the in in that particular group.
22:35
Or like, say you're in a group that does chess and there's the
22:40
chess alpha and then you go to the jiu jitsu and well, there's
22:44
the jiu jitsu alpha and there's the boxing alpha and there's.
22:47
So male status hierarchies are very flexible and who is the
22:50
most important man in the room can change.
22:53
But what they're really trying to sell young men by saying
22:56
alpha is really this thing that I'm talking about.
22:59
Like, is he assertive? Is he, does he, does he look
23:02
confident? Is he, is he strong?
23:05
Is he it? It does do does he have a
23:07
presence when he walks in the room?
23:09
All these things that are associated with masculinity is
23:11
what they're associating with alpha.
23:12
And they make it like it's this type that you're either alpha or
23:15
beta. Like you can only be one of the
23:17
two, you know you. But I think that men are just
23:20
more complicated than that. We're not.
23:22
We're not. Yeah.
23:24
No, I was going to say, but you, you can kind of see if somebody
23:27
is a legacy alpha or legacy beta.
23:31
I mean you can. Yeah, well, well, the OK, like
23:37
the most submissive guy in the room is going to be beta, but
23:40
he's also going to have the less of all the qualities that I've
23:44
talked about. You know, like it's basically
23:46
he's just lower on the masculinity scale then the the
23:51
guy who's super alpha is going to be very sure of himself.
23:55
I mean, that's really what it comes down to a lot.
23:57
And that's unfortunately that's really, that's really kind of a
24:01
problem that we're seeing I think now is that you have men
24:05
who are very confident and if you say anything with
24:08
confidence, people will gravitate towards you.
24:11
It doesn't matter if it's true. It doesn't matter if it makes
24:15
sense. But if you say, hey, buddy, the
24:21
sky is red, it's red, it's been red, it's always been red.
24:25
They're lying to you, all right? You know, like if you say that
24:29
with confidence, people are like, fuck me, the sky is red.
24:35
You know, like it's, that's the thing.
24:37
That's the problem. It's like you can say anything
24:39
with confidence and you have a lot of big influences, you know,
24:41
like, and if you say it with confidence, a lot of people will
24:46
just follow it and believe it and it that's what it it's
24:49
about. So I people have learned how to
24:53
mimic confidence. I think to sell things in many a
25:00
good case, because I guess he's on my mind because his
25:02
documentary just came out and I had the the pleasure of meeting
25:06
him in person was Liver King. Liver King came across as very,
25:11
very confident, like in his message, like everything that he
25:15
said was true. And you know, tons and tons of
25:17
people believed him. I've met him in person.
25:19
I believed him like he was a, he was a charismatic guy.
25:23
He's really, there's a lot to like, a lot to like about him,
25:27
apparently. I mean, he, he lies a little
25:28
bit, but I've, I've known some other guys who came off very
25:32
well who also lied a little bit. So it, you know, sometimes they
25:35
do that, but but the, the confidence is what comes across.
25:39
And he man, if you'd start saying like, OK, Pablos, this is
25:43
what we're doing, then then young men are like, sign me up.
25:48
You know, let's go. It doesn't matter if what you're
25:50
saying is right or not. It just if, if you deliver it
25:53
with confidence, people respond to it.
25:55
There's a handful of virtues that people talk about.
25:58
Yeah, in the way that there's not, not a lot new under the
26:01
sun, you know, like you can, you can read Aristotle and Plato and
26:05
they're talking about the same things that we're talking about
26:07
today. And they're, I'm specifically
26:12
interested in the concept of virtue right now, and that's
26:14
kind of where my work is going. And and yeah, when you talk
26:18
about virtue, you're talking about, you're having the same
26:20
discussion that that you they've been having since, you know,
26:23
ancient Greece. So like, yeah, they a lot, a lot
26:26
of there are only so many like human positives and negatives.
26:30
I guess. Like it is the way that you
26:31
could look at it like what is good and what is bad, you know,
26:34
like there are people talking about temperance as a virtue,
26:38
like self-control. And that's that's this thing
26:41
that's just this recurring theme that people talk about over and
26:43
over again because it's human. Like they're only thing, they're
26:46
things that are specific to people.
26:48
And I think that that's that's one of the things that we really
26:51
got away from in, you know, like the whole, I guess boomer
26:54
experiment is that, you know, like this idea that there was
26:59
that idea that humans are blank slate.
27:01
You could, if the government changes, you can change human
27:04
nature. I think I wrote.
27:06
About that, sorry. Yeah, that's that is actually
27:09
Steven Pinker was my gateway. The the his his book, The Blank
27:15
Slate was a big life changing book for me.
27:18
That was, you know, like in the early 2000s, I think that that
27:21
came out and yeah, that was a major frame shift for me.
27:26
And that's where I first started to get in interested in
27:29
evolutionary psychology and things like that was because,
27:32
you know, there was that that period where they basically the
27:36
boomer generation, I think, redesigned society based on the
27:39
idea that we don't have a human nature.
27:42
And right now we're in this place where we're watching all
27:46
of that fall apart because, OK, you had X amount of years to
27:50
because because human nature is real, because we just like any
27:54
other animal, there are there are things you can expect my
27:57
dogs to do because they're dogs, you know, like, not because they
28:02
were trained to do this or whatever, but because they're
28:04
dogs. And the same thing is true of
28:06
people in the way we just talked about it.
28:09
Like we've been talking about the same discussion about
28:10
virtues for thousands and thousands of years.
28:14
Why? Because people have a nature and
28:17
they have recurring problems that are the same problems all
28:19
around the world. And if you don't address those
28:24
things, what Kipling called it the gods of the copy book
28:27
headings. He has that great poem.
28:30
And it doesn't matter exactly what he says the the gods, the
28:32
complications are, but there are certain human realities that if
28:36
you ignore them, you will be punished for it.
28:40
And and that's that's what we're seeing now is happening.
28:44
Like all the things that, you know, they said, oh, women and
28:48
men are totally interchangeable. We could just put them on the
28:50
workplace. Oh, well, surprised.
28:52
You have a really low birth rate all around the world.
28:55
You know, like, like, oh, well, that's a consequence of that
28:58
thing. You know, like here's that
29:00
experiment and here are the consequences of that.
29:02
You know, if you don't prioritize, you know, if you
29:05
don't prioritize families in society, people won't have them.
29:08
You know, like that's something that needs to happen.
29:10
And so like all, all these human realities don't go away.
29:14
And that's where I think we get into human nature and the just
29:18
the the experience of being human.
29:20
But Jack, OK, so you mentioned declining birth rates, for
29:23
example, so does does masculinity matter when it comes
29:28
to family? I mean it it seems to it seems
29:32
to be an independent variable it it can exist regardless.
29:38
It can, I mean a good example would be what Shackleton or
29:45
something like a man. Men can be on a ship and
29:47
masculinity has its own realm, you know, like they they can be
29:50
on a sailing ship on an adventure for years and years
29:53
and years, never see a woman. And masculinity exists in its
29:55
own space, right? It's totally independent of
29:58
women. But one of the reasons why I
30:04
think it's important for, you know, children to have a father
30:08
and a mother is because, you know, they obviously model the
30:10
two sexes. And if your dad is a loser,
30:16
that's your model for masculinity.
30:18
And so like it, you know, like it's it's also obviously
30:21
important in the home and what people are finding a lot of men,
30:25
there are a lot of men in my group who have families I don't.
30:27
But, you know, they really have to lead that family and they
30:34
have to be the leader in that, in that family.
30:37
And if they're not doing that, the whole thing kind of falls
30:40
apart. And and so and so, yeah, it's
30:43
obviously it's, you know, it's, they always say it's how your
30:47
your daughters are going to envision how men are supposed to
30:49
be and how your sons are going to try and be, you know, like
30:53
their, your sons are going to try and grow up to be like you
30:56
and your daughters are going to their expectations of men are
31:00
set by you. So yeah, I mean, obviously,
31:03
yeah, I think it happens. It matters a lot in the home.
31:06
But it's interesting because, you know, as, as somebody who is
31:10
married and has a child, I see the need for the gang, the tribe
31:16
to be ever more important. And I I can't tell you why
31:20
though, Jack, but it just seems to be that that is what I find
31:26
brings a sense of fulfillment. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, like I
31:31
said, you can't, you can't depend on on like a woman and a
31:34
child for your masculine identity.
31:38
That's that's that's where I think a lot of guys get into
31:40
trouble. And then when they get divorced
31:41
or something, their whole world falls apart because like that
31:44
their whole identity is that that group.
31:45
That's why you have to have something outside that group as
31:48
well. And it's also really good for,
31:53
again, young men and young women.
31:55
Is that OK? You're the one model of
31:59
masculinity. Well, if you have a whole
32:02
collective of, of men who you respect, now you have they have
32:08
a handful of models. Like this is the way that men
32:11
are supposed to behave. You know, if you have guys
32:14
coming over to your house to help you move or whatever, you
32:17
know, and they see this interaction all the time, That's
32:21
it. It broadens their perspective
32:23
about what masculinity is supposed to be.
32:25
It's not just you, but they have all these role models.
32:28
And that's why I think it's really important, you know, for.
32:31
Yeah, it's like if you have a son or something, OK, you're,
32:34
you're the one guy. But if he's seeing all these
32:37
other men who are also have your values, then then he's seeing a
32:41
lot of good modeling to, to, to, you know, shape his character as
32:46
he grows up. And that's why I, like I said,
32:47
I, I, I do jiu jitsu, so I always talk about that because
32:50
I'm that nerd. But I mean, it's, that's one of
32:54
the benefits of being in a place like that is that we have these
32:58
guys and they bring their, their teenage sons in and dad's doing
33:03
jiu jitsu and his son's doing jiu jitsu.
33:05
And his son is also around all these other men who are
33:09
respectful and behaving themselves and like behaving in
33:12
a very positive way. And he's getting all these other
33:15
influences that are that are all positive.
33:18
And so I think that that's very that's very important in in, in
33:21
the way that you know, but. I, I, I, I love what you said
33:24
earlier about human nature because it, you don't even have
33:26
to read about it. It just seems to naturally
33:29
occur. Like for example, my wife will
33:31
say to me, go on your boys weekends and I do, you know,
33:35
I'll go on hunting weekends or whatever.
33:37
And it's just natural. And here's the thing, it's the
33:40
guys who who hold other guys accountable.
33:45
Well, yeah, it's almost like human nature's real, right?
33:49
Imagine that. Imagine that.
33:52
Yeah. That men behave the same way all
33:54
around the world. You know, it's wild.
33:57
You know? It's so.
33:59
Yeah. I mean, you get it, It.
34:02
We're naturally hierarchical creatures, I think more so than
34:05
women. But women have their own
34:06
hierarchies. But you know, men, you'll get a
34:09
group of men together and one of them is going to be the leader.
34:12
And that's just how that's going to work within that group of
34:15
men. And then everybody has their
34:17
role and finds their role within that group.
34:19
Whereas your role might be different in in another group
34:22
because you might have something different to offer.
34:24
But in that group, you're this guy, you know, like.
34:27
And so it's yeah. And, and they'll determine
34:32
what's acceptable for that group is the way it works.
34:36
Like you said, is, is, is holding each other accountable
34:38
for masculinity. Every group is going to have its
34:41
own, like I said, its own little details of what that means.
34:46
You know, like the littlest thing could be like, well, our
34:50
group of guys don't like this. You know, our group of guys
34:53
don't like, I mean, that's running a men's group.
34:55
It's like we have our own little thing like like, oh, I could
34:59
never let that guy in the group because that would, what he's
35:02
doing would not fly, you know, like it would not fly with our
35:05
group. It would fly with somebody else.
35:06
But like our, our guys would be like, we hate this guy.
35:10
Why, why is he here? You know, men need to purpose
35:13
and they need responsibilities or they generally self destruct.
35:17
They, they, they say what I saw a quote about that the other
35:20
day, like if, if you don't give a man a war to fight, he'll,
35:23
he'll make war on himself. And, and that's, that's not
35:27
wrong that, that's for my, the different degrees and different
35:33
men, but men generally need a purpose and, and something, a
35:40
direction, you know, something, a goal, something to do.
35:42
And as long as they're working towards a goal, men are doing
35:44
fine. But if you don't, if you, if you
35:47
give them nothing to do, which is why kind of welfare states
35:50
are scary in a, in a certain way, like if you give men no
35:53
reason to get up in the morning, they will self destruct like
35:56
they need, they need something to move towards that they're
36:00
that they're doing because it's, I mean, again, what have they
36:01
been doing for thousands of years?
36:02
They need to get up in the morning, go hunt food.
36:04
If, if they everything just is delivered to them.
36:08
What, what do you do? Well, why be alive?
36:10
Why be here? And so they become very
36:12
nihilistic. And but in on the topic of
36:15
meaning too. I think that that's something I
36:18
get into a lot in in my book Fire in the Dark is, is that men
36:25
naturally want to live in an ordered world and so they create
36:31
meaning when there is none and that's that.
36:34
That'll rub a lot of religious people the wrong way because
36:37
they meaning comes from an external source.
36:40
But as opposed to yourself? Yeah, my, my view is that if in
36:44
the ABS, like Voltaire said in the if God wasn't there, we'd
36:47
have to create him. The same thing is true of
36:49
meaning if there's no meaning present because there really
36:53
isn't any meaning in the world. And this is gets into a thorny
36:56
thing where people get into nihilism and so forth.
36:58
But I always say, like, I just made a video about this the
37:02
other day. That's kind of my big my thing
37:03
that I'm doing right now is YouTube.
37:05
And like a rock does not need a name to exist.
37:12
We don't need it just exists. It doesn't.
37:14
It just it doesn't need a name. All these things don't need a
37:17
name to exist. All that meaning all the, all
37:19
the a word is a story about a thing, you know, every, every
37:24
word tells a story. And and that's it's creating
37:26
value and it's creating well, it's this and not that, it's
37:29
exclusivity. And so we create all that stuff
37:31
to make sense of our world. And so if we met and we, none of
37:38
us spoke the same language, we would come up with grunts and
37:40
cliques that came to, to and we would remake the world.
37:44
That's what that's what men do. They need to live in an ordered
37:46
world and they will recreate it in its absence.
37:50
And so that's people find that very, people get not very
37:55
nihilistic about that, because if, if there is no absolute
37:59
meaning from an external source, people think they should become
38:01
nihilistic. But I think that I, I think that
38:05
it gives us the opportunity that men will create meaning in its
38:08
absence. And so if there isn't meaning
38:10
there, create it. I mean, and that that that
38:13
becomes very freeing. And it's like, well, it's you
38:16
and your group of guys can recreate would would eventually
38:19
recreate the whole world and, and it would be slightly
38:22
different, but a lot of it would be the same.
38:25
You know, but that's the point though.
38:26
I mean, I, I in a way you kind of making a parallel with that
38:30
story Lord of the Flies where yes, where where you, you
38:36
naturally create purpose. Yes, yeah, yeah.
38:42
I mean, that's what men will do. They, like, someone told me
38:45
about that about dogs, too. And like, if you don't give a
38:49
dog a job, it'll give itself a job, you know, like, it gives
38:54
it. They give themselves jobs
38:55
without us. Like my, my dog's job is to
38:58
obviously, I, I think he thinks he's supposed to like, be
39:01
available at any time, you know, like he has to.
39:05
If I, if I get up and go to my office, my dog will get out of
39:07
bed and go to the next room. So he's nearby, you know, just
39:11
to make sure. I mean, no one told him to do
39:13
that. That's just what he's decided
39:14
that he needs to do. It's a job.
39:17
But the same way men need to have a job and they need to, you
39:21
know, like they'll they'll they'll give themselves one or
39:25
like I said, they'll self destruct.
39:26
I. Just want to go back to the
39:28
tribes gangs aspect because when you say that people kind of
39:33
raised the eyebrows like gangs, OK?
39:36
Yeah, well, and also women, we men relate to women differently.
39:41
And women will never understand this because they, because
39:45
they're women and we relate to them differently.
39:47
But women will short circuit the group 100% women's present.
39:53
Yeah. And it's not because they're bad
39:56
or doing anything wrong or whatever.
39:58
It's just their presence will make men speak differently.
40:02
It'll, it'll, they, they, they'll, they'll change the
40:04
whole way that they relate to each other because women are
40:07
present. And it's not necessarily that
40:09
they like, it's not that they're all going to talk about girls
40:13
when the women are gone, you know, like they, in fact, they
40:15
usually don't, you know, like they're not talking about that.
40:19
Like, what's that mean? Like the guy like sleeping at
40:21
night and the woman's on the other side, I wonder if he's
40:23
thinking about me or whatever. And, and he's like, you know,
40:26
what happened with the Roman Empire?
40:27
You know, it's like it's men. Men are thinking about when men
40:32
get together, they're talking about totally different things.
40:35
They're, they're usually not just venting about women.
40:37
I like it. That's, that's very rare.
40:40
And it's only if it's like necessary for some reason.
40:42
But they're, they're talking about things that men like to
40:44
talk about. That's that's their own
40:46
interests and so forth. But I mean, adding to that,
40:47
there was a study done and I, I cannot for the life of me
40:50
remember when I read this, there was a study done, Jack, that
40:56
they wanted to see what would happen if you added women to the
40:59
front lines of a military operation.
41:04
OK. And effectively the conclusion
41:08
was it would lower morale. Yeah, well, I mean, because all
41:11
they're bonding, right. Like we just said that they they
41:14
relate to each other differently.
41:16
They need to bond to be in that play in that platoon or whatever
41:19
together. And if they can't bond properly
41:23
that that makes them less effective.
41:25
And there is no like specific way to make them bond.
41:28
But they're, they're going to so much of culture is jokes.
41:33
So culture starts with jokes. I say, like almost everything
41:37
begins as like all of a sudden, if you guys have an inside joke,
41:42
then that's, that's kind of the seed of culture.
41:45
We have a whole bunch of jokes that no one else thinks they're
41:47
funny, but we do because we were there and we, I mean, that's
41:50
that's where culture comes from so many.
41:51
And so men have to create that. And a lot of times they won't
41:55
create that with women present, you know, like they won't create
41:57
this like internal discussion that becomes its own culture
42:01
over time. And, and the other thing is, I
42:04
mean, obviously I've, it's nice that what's happening in America
42:08
right now is that we're actually, people are speaking
42:12
about this now, whereas you weren't allowed to talk about
42:13
this for like decades. But I mean, I've heard it from
42:17
friends. I, I had so many people who were
42:20
sought me out after the wave of men because they read it in
42:22
Afghanistan or Iraq or something like that.
42:25
And so all these veterans who come back and like, they just
42:27
talk about being in units with women and like what a disaster
42:31
it was. And like they realize, you know,
42:34
like her value, her street value is that maybe not be got that
42:38
great, but her value when she's in a in a, in a, there are only
42:42
three women and like 30 guys, their, their value goes up and
42:46
then become they used to, what do they call them something
42:49
Queens? But, you know, like, all of a
42:52
sudden these girls will get guys carrying all their stuff for
42:54
them and all this, you know, like, 'cause they're the only
42:56
women there, you know, like, so they, yeah, short circuits a lot
43:01
of things to have women present just because of natural, because
43:04
of men and women are different. Jack why is masculinity
43:09
becoming, well, not masculinity? Why are men becoming so
43:13
feminized? What's going on?
43:14
Is that a result of women, or is that a result of other men?
43:20
Well, it's, it's a result of other men in, in terms of like
43:26
everything that happened, we were in charge.
43:28
So everything that happened happened on our watch, like,
43:34
like feminism happened on our watch, you know, like it, it's
43:39
so it's like, yeah, yeah. I mean, to a certain extent,
43:42
everything is men's fault, you know, like, so anything that bad
43:46
happened really. I mean, all the changes that
43:49
have happened in society have been because some men at at the
43:52
top were like, yeah, that'll be fine.
43:54
We'll we'll just go with that. That'll work for right now.
43:57
And and then we live through the problems that that creates, you
44:02
know, whether it was, you know, like, say the boomer kind of
44:04
experiment, whether the things that happened with the Internet
44:06
or, you know, like all these changes happen in society, then
44:09
we, we have to deal with them. And obviously the reason why if
44:13
men are becoming feminized is because a they're being
44:14
programmed in a particular way by propaganda to be.
44:18
I mean, like I said, I was, I was always, you know, grew up, I
44:21
guess in the late 80s, early 90s.
44:24
And there was already a lot of propaganda, like masculinities,
44:26
outdated men are bad. You shouldn't act like a man.
44:30
That's like not not the right way to behave.
44:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Toxic wasn't even they didn't
44:34
even call it toxic then. It wasn't with that.
44:36
That's like a innovation from a twenty 10s.
44:38
But in the 70s they called it testosterone poisoning.
44:43
Like it was the same thing. They just recycle the same thing
44:46
over and over again, but they just give it new names.
44:49
But yeah, I mean, it was there's yeah, there are all these men,
44:54
they're getting all these messages that masculinity is
44:56
bad. I think that actually probably
44:57
contributed a lot to the trans thing is that you have, you
45:02
know, if you're a young man and you've been told your entire
45:06
life that being is man is a bad thing, maybe you want to be a
45:09
woman. You know, like that's, I think
45:12
that that's a valid that's probably been an influence on on
45:15
a lot of the people who are confused.
45:17
Well, I bet you've been telling me that being I am a man, but
45:20
you've been telling me that being a man is bad.
45:22
So, you know, like that get that's got to get in their head.
45:26
You know, like if they've been hearing that since they were
45:27
like a baby, that's that's got to get in their head.
45:30
And so that's I think that's a factor.
45:32
But the other thing is obviously is there's the propaganda
45:36
element of it. And then there's also the
45:39
element of it that is, you know, like just lack of challenge.
45:43
Like we said, masculinity is optional.
45:45
You have to seek out challenges. So the way you have all these
45:47
guys doing like absurd things, you know, whether it's ice bath
45:52
things like men's groups for a while that was the big trend.
45:55
They all get together and take ice baths like 'cause they don't
45:57
have anything hard in their lives.
45:59
Me and my friends who have done at different times, like blue
46:02
collar jobs that are actually hard.
46:05
Like it's like my, my buddy, he, he had the best story.
46:08
He was like, these guys are getting ice baths.
46:11
Have you tried being on a ladder for three hours trying to fix
46:15
something in in the freezing rain and your pants are frozen
46:18
to your leg? Have you tried that?
46:20
Like, you know, there are a lot of jobs see in the world that
46:24
you can still do that are really hard and those people will just
46:27
want to come home and relax. They don't need to take an ice
46:29
bath, but they they do other things.
46:32
But there are so many men who don't have anything that's
46:34
challenging in their lives. And so they need to seek that
46:39
out. And that's, you know, like if
46:42
you grew up having, I would say, like men who grew up with
46:44
brothers have a little bit of an edge because they, they've had
46:48
to compete with another guy their whole life.
46:51
And so they've had to work out all those little status
46:53
hierarchies and all that stuff. They've been doing that their
46:55
whole lives. Whereas like I, I grew up with
46:57
sisters. So, you know, I'll never have
46:59
that advantage. But that's that's why, you know,
47:04
you know, whether people go into like combat sports and things
47:08
like that, they've never had that experience and they need to
47:10
have it. They need to go through that
47:13
experience of figuring out that hierarchy and doing the push,
47:15
pull and all that kind of stuff with it with different men
47:18
because that's part of how we become what we are.
47:21
But it's easier not to do any of those things, you know, And
47:25
society, it's like society is telling you being a man is bad.
47:28
And it's also easier to not be a man.
47:33
So well, that's that's your answer to like why men are
47:35
becoming so effeminate is it's like society is saying it's bad
47:39
to be masculine and being masculine is hard, you know,
47:43
like, say, and men will judge you in a way that women won't.
47:46
And so men, so many men get addicted to female affirmation,
47:50
which is, yeah, I'll say which is cheap.
47:55
Like in the sense that like, you know, if you look at a woman
48:00
post something and it's all, a lot of it's fake too.
48:03
But if you, a woman post something, you get 300 other
48:06
women being like, that's amazing, amazing, amazing,
48:11
everything you do amazing. And whereas dudes, you have to
48:15
struggle to get a positive comment from a guy at all.
48:19
That was really shit. Come on.
48:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like you could do anything.
48:24
I mean, I would say like, 'cause you know, my job is to sometimes
48:26
do manly stuff. I was like, if I, if I would do
48:28
literally anything in the realm of masculinity and post it on
48:33
Instagram, my comments will light out about how I did it
48:37
wrong. Like it doesn't matter, you
48:39
know, like it'll be dudes will not be like the amount of man
48:43
squat a great job. Your squat wasn't low enough.
48:47
Oh, 100% exactly. Like that's a perfect example.
48:49
Same thing. Any of the masculine spheres,
48:52
like dudes who are shooting. Yeah, like, like, dude, dudes
48:56
have all kinds of opinions about that.
48:58
Yeah, dudes, all of us too far out.
49:00
Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.
49:01
Oh, all of it, all of it. Men won't could tweak you to the
49:05
and that's kind of a little bit of an Internet disease it but
49:08
it's it's something that we do in real life, you know, but kind
49:12
of in a joking way. But in the Internet it's just
49:14
obnoxious. It becomes like guys have an
49:17
opinion about every little thing that you do, you know, whereas
49:19
like I said, women, women, it's much easier, I think for men to
49:23
be like, hey, I'm going to surround myself with women who
49:26
say that everything I do is amazing.
49:29
You know, like it's, it's a different world and being around
49:32
men is hard. Although it can come off as
49:37
being somewhat superficial, the discussion that we're having,
49:40
but it's not because I'll let me give you an example.
49:42
I was not too long ago, I was in Amsterdam, and I said to my
49:48
wife, you know, I saw a lot of males, but I didn't see a lot of
49:52
men. And I said that, you know, after
49:55
having read your your book because I suddenly became more
49:58
aware of the absolute feminization of men as they're
50:04
walking around looking at their cell phones with headphones on,
50:06
disconnected from reality and would probably jump and run away
50:11
if there was a fire, you know, not and not actually apply the
50:15
virtues of masculinity. Yeah.
50:18
And I think, I think it's even more than that too.
50:21
I think because it's what we are regardless.
50:25
And so I think that for us to reach our potential as men,
50:32
that's they're areas that we need to deal with and, and
50:36
areas, you know, like, because you know, if you're not going to
50:41
be masculine, like dudes always ask me on Instagram, they ask me
50:44
like, how do I become more masculine?
50:45
I'm like, how do we become more of a man or whatever?
50:47
I'm like, well, you're not a woman, so the only thing that
50:50
you can do is become more of a man.
50:53
Or you can just be a really crappy woman.
50:56
You're never going to be good at being a woman, so you need to
50:59
get better at being a man. I think it's like a good enough
51:02
message for a lot of people because it's going to make you
51:04
better at being you because that that is what you are.
51:07
And so you don't have to become this caricature of masculinity
51:10
where you just try and do all the manly things, being a lot of
51:15
it's not an outfit like that. That's where I think a lot of
51:18
gays go wrong is that they, they, they, they think
51:21
masculinity is an outfit that you can wear like, Oh, I'm
51:23
putting on my lumberjack costume, you know, like, but men
51:29
value can you actually do the thing, you know, like that's
51:32
more important than the costume or the outfit, the actual
51:36
ability to take action and do the thing, whatever it is.
51:39
And men are very tuned to authenticity in that way, you
51:45
know, like, in the sense of like, you know, all these, like
51:49
I said, Internet comments or whatever.
51:50
It's like if you, I could never, I had a guy in a photo shoot one
51:55
time. It was a photographer and he
51:57
wanted me to, he had these prop weapons and he wanted me to hold
52:03
up these weapons and he thought that would be cool.
52:05
And I was like, dude, I have so many special forces followers.
52:08
I can't hold a weapon. I, I, I can't sit there and get
52:12
photographed of a weapon I don't know how to use.
52:15
Like they would slay me. Like, like, you know, like,
52:17
because men are like, you know, like I would never be
52:20
photographed with a weapon that I've never fired or never a
52:22
weapon that I never don't know how to use because that, like,
52:25
who are you trying to be like that?
52:27
Unless you're acting like, unless you're literally in a, in
52:29
a play or a movie or something like that and you're acting now
52:31
that's fine. But the we men respect your
52:36
actual ability to do things. It's not like just play act and,
52:40
and, and look cute, you know, like you, you actually have to
52:43
be able to do things. And, and I think that that's
52:45
really important to men as well. And so, and, and as you're
52:49
saying, dude's walking down the street.
52:51
Well, you can tell if they can't do certain things, you know,
52:54
like you can tell that they've never been in certain kinds of
52:56
situations. And you know, there's a sliding
52:59
scale. I mean, it's not like I've, I, I
53:01
mean, I hang out with, I've, I've guys in my groups who are
53:04
like, I have a guy in my group who's a Marine Raider.
53:07
And I'm sure it's probably killed a lot of people like
53:10
overseas. And you know, like he's had that
53:12
whole experience and seen some things, you know, like that I
53:15
will never see in my life. And we we can't all you have to
53:20
do the best you can, you know, like it from where you are, you
53:23
know, but but you can't, you can't have every experience or
53:26
be be all the man things because then you're just kind of
53:28
becoming a character of like, I'm going to be the the manliest
53:31
man in man town. And you, you can't really be all
53:35
that. And you have so it has to be
53:36
proportionate to where you are in life.
53:38
But I think it's important to go and explore those things at
53:42
least, you know, like you don't have to become an MMA fighter,
53:45
but you should probably know what it's like to get punched.
53:48
Yeah, like you should probably you should probably have that
53:50
experience and and like go do that for a little bit and then
53:54
maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.
53:56
Because a lot of anything in life, right, you you can try
54:00
them something and maybe it's for you and maybe it's not.
54:03
But a lot of times you don't know if it's for you because it
54:06
may seem like it's not for you. And then and then all of a
54:09
sudden you become very interested in it.
54:10
Like, you know, like I avoided jiu jitsu for years and now it's
54:13
like I really like wrestling and and I but I don't really like
54:17
ghee like like you get these very specific, like I like this
54:20
and I don't like that, but you had to try it to find out.
54:23
And and so that's true of all the man things.
54:26
Like I've done the shooting thing.
54:28
I always say that I'm kind of like I'm done.
54:30
I'm over my shooting arc, Like I I've done that.
54:33
I've tried it out. It's not really my my thing.
54:35
I, I, I would do it again in, in the right situation, but like,
54:39
it's not like something that really calls to me, you know,
54:42
but I've, I've been there and I've tried that and I know what
54:44
it is. And I think that's important for
54:46
men to do anything in the masculine sphere.
54:49
Like that is like, men should go out and seek that out and try it
54:52
out. And it helps you understand who
54:55
you are as a man and to to you know.
54:58
It's kind of going back to the primal and and disregarding the
55:02
social constructs, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
55:06
I mean, to a certain extent, well, there are these primal
55:09
qualities of masculinity. I think it's important to
55:11
explore those because they are we are still the same animals
55:15
like being a man is being this certain kind of animal.
55:18
And you I think it's important to see that exercise, you know,
55:25
like this exercise, that strength and you know, it makes
55:29
you something else. Like I always you said, you want
55:31
to talk to me about workout stuff later, But for instance, I
55:36
would say like I didn't really start working out really hard
55:39
until my mid 30s, mid mid to late 30s.
55:42
And I wouldn't have told you at 20 that I think of myself as
55:46
being strong. And now it's literally part of
55:50
my identity like that, that's being the strong guy is actually
55:55
part of my identity and who I am.
55:56
And I wouldn't have known that I, I wouldn't have known I had
55:59
the potential for that or whatever it had I not tried it
56:02
out. And so that's part of my core
56:04
identity. I don't like certain lifts to go
56:07
below a certain thing. I'm actually doing that right
56:09
now. I'm like, well, let's do some
56:11
50s benchmarks. I haven't deadlift in a few
56:12
years. Well, well, I don't like that
56:14
number. That's much too low.
56:16
I'm like, let's get that up to where it was.
56:18
And you know, like, and, and, and so that's part of my
56:21
identity now and that's part of who I am.
56:22
And that's, I think it's made me just, I said more of myself, you
56:30
know, like a better version of myself by exploring those areas.
56:35
And like I said, not everything is for every person but you, you
56:38
will get you, you will realize your potential, I guess, as a
56:42
man that you did maybe didn't think you had.
56:44
And I think that's why I think it's important to explore those
56:46
things. Speaking of which, did you see a
56:48
few days ago a South African one, the world's strongest man?
56:54
Oh, no, no, I didn't see that. I thought you were going to go
56:56
through somewhere else with that.
56:57
But South Africa's been in our news a little bit lately.
57:02
Yes, but and. We won't talk about that because
57:03
it's highly embarrassing, Yeah. Yeah.
57:06
But. But no, yeah, I, I did not see
57:09
that. But yeah, that's, yeah.
57:11
I mean, again, that's a, I've done some strong man training
57:13
before and I know what that is, you know, like it's not
57:15
something I want to do all the time, but it's, it's good to
57:17
know what that feels like. Yeah.
57:20
So that's that's it's a cool thing.
57:22
But that's also what I find about masculinity.
57:27
That's so, I don't know, appealing also is the fact that
57:33
I'm not interested in what women do in the gym.
57:36
I'm interested in what men do in the gym and I'm interested in in
57:39
in in how they excel. And that's, that's the
57:44
foundation of virtue really is, is excellence.
57:48
I mean, that's, there's an interesting thing.
57:50
I mean, that's kind of where my interest is now.
57:52
So it captures my mind. But veer, the root word of
57:57
virtue is, is veer, which it means man.
58:01
So it's basically virtue meant manly in this ancient Rome.
58:04
And so it was Marshall, manliness, all the tactical
58:06
virtues, all the stuff that I'm talking about.
58:07
That's what that's what virtue meant originally.
58:11
And then it met with the Greek arete.
58:14
And when, you know, the Greeks influenced the Romans a lot with
58:19
the gods and the other things, but also with philosophy.
58:22
And so when you have Plato and everybody talking about Plato
58:25
and Aristotle and so forth, talking about ayate, which is
58:28
basically excellences. And so like those two things
58:33
merged right about Cicero, right about Cicero, those things
58:38
crossed over and became the virtue, became all these
58:42
excellences and the manly things together.
58:45
And maybe I'll write a book about that some point, but
58:47
that's kind of where I'm at with it.
58:49
Is that that's the foundation of virtue Is is this chase of
58:53
excellence and manliness at the same time?
58:56
How can I follow you? Oh, right now, like I said, my
59:02
website is www.jack-donovan.com. But right now I think the
59:09
easiest way to find me is I'm trying to produce videos every
59:11
week on YouTube. So I have a Jack Donovan at
59:16
YouTube, I have a channel there and I, I let that sleep for, for
59:20
a decade and now I'm kind of trying to go and talk at least
59:25
once a week on YouTube. And that's none of my new
59:27
projects. So that's, that's the best place
59:29
to find where I'm most active right now.
59:31
So I mean, I'm, I'm on Instagram at starttheworld and you know, I
59:35
have this group called Order of Fire at orderfire.com.
59:39
And that's my whole philosophy based on my book Fire in the
59:42
Dark. And obviously all my books are
59:44
in Amazon, et cetera. So.
59:46
Jack Donovan, thank you for joining me in the trenches.