Most Men Don't Want To Be Heroes (And That's Okay)

We are continually being asked to feel sorry for men, to understand that there is some significant sense in which we men are being poorly served by a liberal society. Exactly how is usually left undefined. It's taken for granted that we’re being ignored, disrespected, or ‘left behind’. When a specific grievance is asserted, it's transparently false. In both cases, I think the grievance-merchants are relying on us to ‘connect the dots’ and pick up on something not quite being said. 

Take Chris Arnade’s recent article in the Free Press, arguing that men—all men—need to be heroic, or at least to be seen as heroes. Modern liberal society is apparently hostile to this and won’t give us these opportunities. In doing so, it deprives us of some innate drive, making us unhappy and unfulfilled. 

I personally find these ‘think of the poor men’ pieces condescending. They don’t understand my life and I don’t like their claim to speak for me. This one especially so, and that’s no accident: Chris Arnade’s entire project is a sort of voyeuristic ventriloquism: gawping at, and speaking for, people who he imagines can’t speak for themselves. His origin story is, after a long career in finance, he got a buyout and was able to retire early. With his newfound freedom, he took up a hobby of photographing poor people (no, really) in ways many have criticised as exploitative and demeaning. Because our mainstream media are unfathomably stupid, he swiftly gained publication and recognition. His writing follows in the same suit—reporting on the ‘forgotten’ people of America in the manner (and one suspects with the factual accuracy) of a Victorian anthropologist lecturing on a tribe of noble savages he encountered. 

Naturally, Arnade is a big proponent of the poverty narrative—people vote Trump because of economic desperation and cultural disrespect. And this hero article seems to move towards the masculinity narrative—effete liberalism is pushing men right. I’ve said my piece on both of those. I want to put the political implications to one side, and focus on the core argument.

What to me seems wrong—and obviously wrong—are the two claims Arnade makes in his title and byline: That “all men” need to be heroes to be happy and fulfilled, and that the opportunity to do so is somehow being denied them.

To be a man

When I was much younger, I saved someone from drowning. They had (possibly while intoxicated) gone into a rough and choppy sea, at night, and were struggling to stay above water. Worse, the tide was pulling them out. I went in after them and, with some effort, brought them back to shore. As we got close, an older man I did not know also came in to help and, between the two of us, we dragged them out. Exhausted and freezing cold, but safe. 

It might surprise someone like Arnade to learn that this has not proved an especially important moment in my life. I’m glad I did it. I received profuse thanks from the person in question and general plaudits from my peers (which Arnade imagines all young men need). And then, well… life moves on. Other things happen to you. It’s not something that’s provided any great moral lesson for me. Nor is it important to my sense of identity—this is the first time I’ve mentioned it publicly, not out of humility; I honestly just don’t really think about it. 

I’ve also provided support to people in less dramatic, more long-term, more female-coded ways. For instance, assisting a loved one through a disability. Or being, with my family, a carer for a close relative with Alzheimer's. There is absolutely no doubt the latter have given more meaning to me, developed my character more, and have strengthened my relationships with others in a way more traditional ‘heroics’ couldn’t.

Providing long-term care for someone is an endless series of small decisions to prioritize the other person, most in themselves trivial and quickly forgotten. Rather than one moment in which you have to master yourself, you have to decide to continually live that value. And it improves you. It will teach to be kind, it will teach you how to care about someone in a way that taking a one-time risk won’t. You will feel frustration with people for things that are not their fault and have to move past that. You’ll then feel guilt—often quite profound guilt—for having felt that frustration. You will learn—and you will be forced to learn—how to forgive others and yourself. All of this will be mixed with moments of real joy and real connection. I can’t speak for everyone, but these have been among the most important parts of my life.

On a societal level, if there is a crisis of acts of service not being recognised it is of this latter, female-coded, kind. Despite Arnade’s claim that heroics are now (somehow) looked down on, whenever I’ve done something (even something quite minor) that fits this male-coded frame, I’ve received praise and recognition. In Arnade’s own story—which he takes as an exemplar of his thesis—the ‘hero’ (who retrieved a drunk from a locked bathroom) was bought drinks and made to feel good about his actions. (“he strutted around like the cat’s meow.”)  In contrast, looking after a relative in cognitive decline can be very isolating. Despite it being the much more common experience, many carers feel  profoundly alone. Finally, as societies age, more and more of us are going to need to fill this role.

There is not the same structural need for an army of men pulling people out of locked bathrooms or choppy seas. That’s not the point, Arnade might say—men need that, and without it we’ll be forlorn, miserable, useless mopes. But will we? For most of us, a true emergency rescue moment might happen once or twice throughout your life. You want to meet the moment, but I think it will be challenging to build a stable identity around. 

How could you? Take my case: I was happy enough to be given credit, but am I going to tell that story in every interaction for evermore? Am I going to sit, day after day, meditating in satisfaction on my ‘hero moment’? Can you imagine a more insufferable prat?

And most men who want this to be their personality don’t even have that. They live in anticipation of one.  Consider gun nuts who define themselves by making themselves ‘ready for the moment’. With a grim predictability, study after study shows they are far, far more likely to use their beloved firearms to end their own lives than to stop a ‘bad guy with a gun’.

Professional heroics 

To find real meaning and fulfillment in heroism, I think you’d have to do more of it. For most of us, this sort of thing might happen once or twice in your life. You’ll make a—likely poorly informed and impulsive—decision. Hopefully everything works out. And then the world will move on. There are, however, plenty of vocations which involve ‘heroic’ acts. 

The opportunity to pursue these (or, for that matter, for the rest of us to behave commendably in a rare emergency) is not something being ‘taken away’ from men. Indeed, it's difficult to even understand why Arnade thinks this. As mentioned, in his own specifically selected anecdote, the man is both allowed to be ‘heroic’ and praised for it. The only evidence he offers is this article, which he characterises as arguing “the ancient hero archetype is corrosive, bad, and unnecessary—an outdated concept of masculinity, which promotes imperialism.” 

The first issue here is that’s not what the linked article says. It’s an examination of how men like Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk love to cite ancient heroic poetry, but largely misunderstand it. However I can easily see how Arnade would read it as saying something else: I imagine he gave it a quick scan and his priors kicked in—academic liberal author, ‘front of the class kid’, bet he ‘sneers’ at real men. It’s saying something about the hero, about masculinity. Must be against it. Arrogantly so. 

His whole article is framed this way. The smug pseudo-knowledge of liberal intellectuals is contrasted with the real world wisdom he gleaned from uncouth mouths in a trashy dive bar (it's even more explicit in the Substack post on which the article is based—“one of the divey-est dive bars in the US, with a collection of intoxicated, high, and strung out customers”). This is, in the words of social science, a dubious social epistemology. By its standards, Arnade should defer to my perspective: I’d bet money I’ve spent more time in working class American dive bars as he has. And I was there as a customer, not an ex-banker on a poor person safari. 

I suspect however that what Arnade is channeling isn’t a deeper meaning he’s deduced from proximity to the poor, but a narrative pushed by conservative writers he reads. Namely, that liberalism is a feminising ideology. That ‘back in the day’ men might go to war and be rewarded with social standing and an obedient woman. That  now society has no use for men. We cannot prove ourselves this way, and must work meaningless feminised office jobs that suck the life out of us and quash our masculine urges. 

As always with conservatism, it’s not immediately clear what day ‘back in the day’ was. But we can perhaps start with some of their models of masculinity: They love the image of the Spartan warrior—the iconic helmet, or even just the name ‘Spartan’, appears on memes, fitness routines, team logos, and ‘trad’ accounts. The European knight is likewise a common symbol of lost manhood.The thing is, both those figures sat atop rigid hereditary caste systems. Something like 90% of Sparta were helots (slaves); only 2-3% were the famed warriors. One medieval knight required an economic base of around 300 tenants or serfs (semi-free agricultural workers) to support them. Even in Republican Rome, which recruited much further down the social ladder (and won wars because of it), limited conscription to landowners. Non-property owners, the urban poor, and of course slaves were excluded. 

Sparta, Rome, or the age of the Crusades were not a better time to be a man—even if your only criterion is ‘gives opportunities to be a hero in battle’. The overwhelming odds are you would be working to support a warrior aristocrat, not be one. Also, if our concern is men being disrespected, consider that workers supporting the aristocrats were usually defenceless against humiliation or abuse from them. You have to get into the modern age before mass conscription allows most men to ‘prove themselves’ in war. Even then, race and class discrimination might limit how you could participate. Finally, if I were to choose an era to prove my manhood in battle, I would choose one which had antibiotics and surgery with anesthetic.  

Some far-right commentators—for instance the Bronze Age Pervert—are quite open that this is not a problem for them: their project is about a few exceptional men, not the peons who support them (much less women). Those who might be tempted by this worldview should realize that the commentators pushing it do not expect you to be one of the masculine elect. You will be toiling so they can larp as heroic warriors.  Arnade doesn’t go that far, indeed that bullet-biting isn’t available to him: he claims “all men” need to be heroes. Applying that standard honestly, he should come to the conclusion that past societies were much, much worse for his ‘forgotten’ men. 

Today, virtually anyone can become a soldier, or police officer, or firefighter (and be well compensated in pay and social status).  Liberalism's critics are forever claiming it's ‘taken away’ things there’s never been more universal access to. ‘Traditional marriage’ is not being taken from you. Anyone can still do that. You want to be a ‘trad’ with a stay at home wife and lots of kids? Millions of people do, plenty of women still want that role, and broad economic prosperity makes it easier, not harder. Want masculine hobbies? No one is stopping you. Just want to grill? Meat has never been more accessible for the common man!

Liberalism: good for men too!

The revealed preference however is that most men don’t want these vocations. The Army aggressively recruits; really any young man at any point can join. The vast majority don't. Men fantasise about being in combat scenarios but, by and large, don’t seek them out. This is one reason why conservatives (and fellow travelers like Arnade) hate liberalism so much: free choice disproves their biological essentialism. Rather than abandon the narrative (all men gravitate towards certain roles), they abandon reality. Men aren’t choosing non-’heroic’ roles, liberalism is (somehow) stopping them. 

Most men don’t want to be heroes and that’s fine. Arnade doesn't know what’s in your head and, despite his ‘listening to the common man’ schtick, he doesn’t care. He has his narrative, informed by elite conservative writers, and goes into the world reading it into his interactions with poor people. Even when, as we have seen, those interactions flatly contradict it. He has his perception of liberalism and, as we have seen, that’s what he’ll read us as saying—regardless of what we actually do say. 

Liberal freedom isn’t just about finding the life that best suits you, it’s a grand experiment in us all finding the best ways we can care for one another. Arnade characterizes modern liberalism as favouring “the individual over the community”. This is wrong; liberalism values both. Its canonical texts—On Liberty for instance—are self-consciously about finding a balance between the two. In recent times, the great push for unconstrained individualism, the tearing down of structures of communal aid, and the bleak insistence that “there’s no such thing as society” have come from the political right. Liberalism has compromised too much with this vision of men reduced to want fulfillment, but never let go of the insight that freedom, choice, and pluralism are both better for individuals and better for society.

I think it’s better for men to be able to choose the ways we do things for others. I know several men my age who take on equal, or even primary, parenting responsibilities. They do so, not because a feminised society has forced this on them, but because they enjoy doing it. They love their kids, these relationships give their lives meaning, and it makes them better people. Past societies might have discouraged, or even prohibited men from taking on this role. Now they can. And I think they will be better at it precisely because they have chosen it, as J.S. Mill puts it:

In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them.

Arnade imagines that this sort of freedom leaves men frightened and confused. That we are simple and stupid creatures who need “to play a stock character.” To again quote Mill, that we should fit ourselves into “the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character.” I can’t help but find this condescending. If you want to play a stereotype, fine, no one is stopping you. But note that Arnade only makes this claim about other men, never himself. Does he find himself unable to choose his life path, unable to make decisions, unable even to know how to present himself to others, without a stronger guiding hand from society? He never says, but one suspects not. 

So what’s this actually about?

With all that said, it must be noted that articles on male angst clearly have resonance. Why? For one thing, the people in every historic period and type of society have felt angsty. It's just something people do. And articles like Arnade’s give an easy answer. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with feeling insecure or sad. If there’s one thing the ‘think of the men’ articles get right it's that men’s mental health is underdiscussed and stigmatized—though they rarely provide useful solutions.

If there is a significant societal change that these articles are responding to, it’s not a matter of men losing something—we demonstrably haven't—it's about women gaining something. They can now make their own way in the world. Women can be heroes too!  We men can still earn respect in all sorts of ways, but are no longer granted it simply by virtue of being men. People like always having someone beneath them. That, I think, is what the ‘male malaise’ genre is, at its core, about. 

When we’re asked to consider the poor, left behind young men, we’re often reminded that girls are now exceeding boys in most aspects of education. This is true and, on the surface, a reasonable enough thing for public policy to think about (for instance, is this gap due to different socialisation, different learning styles, etc?). Beneath the surface, I think something uglier is sometimes being said: That it is an unbearable indignity for boys to have girls ‘above’ them like this. I think what’s gone wrong for a lot of men in their lives is—though they might not admit it to themselves in these terms—they’re angry that their sisters went to college and they didn’t. Their lives have been fine, but their sisters or female school peers have been better and that feels like an injustice. One they’ve not been able to let go of. Their fathers had to reconcile themselves to female peers in the workplace, most young men now will be managed by a woman at some point. When we hear about how ‘disrespected’ men feel, is it that feminists are stopping men being firefighters? Or is it that men in office jobs are being told what to do by a woman? 

There’s an urge in liberalism to debate the highest version of the opposing argument. Steelman, not strawman. That’s valid and useful, but we shouldn't let it get in the way of plainly understanding what the manosphere is complaining about. These are not tortured souls, reading Homer in a world of hyper-feminists who no longer care for it. They’re useless miserable prats who wish they had the courage to call their female boss a b**** and live vicariously through Trump because they imagine he’d do that. 

Liberalism does not force us from the communal to the individual. I doubt helots had a great sense of community with the Spartan overlords who hunted them for sport. Nor does it force men from male-coded forms of community service to female-coded ones. It gives us the choice. We have never before had more ability to develop ourselves as fathers, as children caring for parents, or in who or how we date. We’ve also never before had more opportunity to be traditionally masculine—to make a vocation of the army, or pulling people from burning buildings, or competing in professional sports. Despite the silly and shallow self-pity of some, there has never been a better time to be  a man. 

The ‘cost’ for all this is we have to give up having women as automatic social inferiors. That should be an easy trade to make.  

Featured image is פסל אכילס הגוסס לאחר שנפגע בחץ בעקבו by י.ש., CC BY-SA 3.0