Test of manliness

I WAS happy a friend gave me a listing of blogs that offered ideas
about manliness. Our society today seems in urgent need of these
ideas. There’s now a growing confusion in this area, made worse by the
fact that ideologues are promoting all kinds of doctrines, not all of
them certified correct.

Not only are there strong gender-bending influences around now, the
line between male and female blurred. In many places, the transition
from boyhood to manhood seems to be trapped in a warped understanding
of what to be manly is.

The youth are mostly affected by this situation. With today’s
communication technologies, they can get exposed to a lot of concepts
about manliness and yet can still miss the right one.

Or worse, they can become so skeptical and cynical about the whole
issue that they would not mind anymore if what they have is right or
wrong.

Many would rationalize that the world is big enough to fit all sorts
of cultures of manliness. Besides, there’s a trend toward tolerance,
precisely because of the increasing variety of mentalities and
lifestyles we have today.

So, not to make a big fuss out of this question seems to be the
politically correct attitude to take. To a certain extent, I can
understand and accept that attitude. But I think it would be wrong if
we leave things simply at that level. There has to be an earnest
effort to rediscover what true manliness is.

In fact, across history, cultures and peoples, the search for
manliness has always been a prominent feature in social life.
Different rites of passage have emerged depending on the community’s
consensus on the matter.

That’s a very understandable natural process. The problem with that
is that since it is time, place and culture-bound, the idea of
manliness is not planted on firm ground. It’s not stable and
universal. It can become obsolete after some time or when
circumstances change.

In a primitive society always engaged in tribal wars, for example, to
be manly means to fight, to be a soldier. But when civilization
improved and conflicts were resolved less through battles, its idea of
manliness entered into a crisis.

There were other notions and practices that while containing some
good elements just could not be given a universal applicability. I
learned that among the Spaniards, they were told when still young that
it was not manly for boys to cry. That’s cruel. Boys and men sometimes
need to cry.

I remember when I was still in kindergarten learning English with
American nuns in the city. Whenever I would go to the barrio where my
father came from, the people there, rough and tough, would laugh at me
because I spoke English and would distinguish the long a from the
short a.

I was made to understand that speaking English that way was not
manly. It was good that my parents assured me I was on the right
track, and told me just to understand the barrio people. Otherwise, I
would have been confused.

Several incomplete and even wrong definitions and descriptions of
manliness have appeared in history. To be manly was viewed before as
being like the Spartans of old, or like the privileged class of
society, or an independent artisan or successful businessman.

Sometimes, manliness was attached to having a Hercules-like physique,
or being a Casanova or a playboy. Caricatures of manliness
proliferated.

We need to cultivate a culture of manliness grounded on the terra
firma of the true nature of man. At our present age, we cannot simply
remain in having a shallow understanding of manliness, vulnerable to
pressure groups with questionable ideologies.

The old Greek and Roman civilizations have already given us a cue, by
associating manliness with developing virtues, with the idea that
everyone, man or woman, tries to excel and be the best one can be.

Precisely, the word virtue comes from the Latin stem “vir” which
means man. To be manly, therefore, is to be virtuous.

What Christianity has done is to even ground this initially correct
understanding of manliness by the Greeks and the Romans to its
ultimate source. And that is to be like Christ—to be “alter Christus,
ipse Christus” (another Christ, if not Christ himself).

Remember what St. John said of Christ: “He had no need that anyone
should bear witness concerning man, for he himself knew what was in
man.” (Jn 2,25)

In short, the test of manliness contains a crucial faith element to
it. Absent that, everything becomes a mess.