10 Pillars of Healthy Masculinity
A formula for a healthy masculinity fit for the 21st century
America needs a new vision of a healthy masculinity fit for the 21st century. I had the opportunity to weigh in on this at a recent event on gender at the University of Dallas hosted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
My talk isn’t a detailed to-do list around fitness, career, where to live, etc. Instead, it’s about ten foundational pillars of the masculine life that every man needs to have as part of his manhood repertoire. These are the things on which life is built.
Here’s the video of my talk, which is 50 minutes long. I’m still developing this material, so I’ll doubtless be refining this over time - and writing more about it here. So paid subscribers please do leave your thoughts in the comments.
The ten pillars I discuss are:
Identity. If you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what to do. “Who are you?” is the most fundamental question of life. I wrote about this in newsletter #87. And I also already posted this segment of the top as a standalone clip.
Mission. Every man needs to have a mission. And it’s important for men to know that their hopes, dreams, plans, and aspirations matter too. I also posted this segment as a clip.
Agency. You have to believe that it is possible to take action to change your circumstances to the better, to take positive steps towards progress in your mission.
Virtue. This is not just being morally upright, thought that’s part of it. It’s cultivating excellences across multiple dimensions of virtue: the theological virtues, the cardinal virtues, the tactical virtues, etc.
Knowledge. You need to know how the world works. Not just how people tell you it works, or how you would like it to work, but how it actually does work.
Wisdom. You have to constantly grow in how to apply your virtue and knowledge in the right way in each situation. Because nothing will undermine your mission like folly.
Fraternity. Every man needs a band a brothers. Nothing is easier to overlook than the need for fraternity. Too many men either have no friends, or only the illusion of friends (who are really just the husbands of their wife’s friends).
Family. Getting married and having kids is the normative path for men in life. A lot of young men say they want to get married someday. Well, someday gets here a lot faster than you ever thought possible, and it’s all too easy to miss your window.
Suffering. Boxer Mike Tyson said, “Everybody’s got a plan till they get punched in the face.” One of these days, life is going to punch you in the face. Think you aren’t going to suffer in life? Think again.
Legacy. What are you going to leave behind when you are gone? How will you have an impact in the world that extends beyond the span of your own life?
I hope you enjoy this and find it useful. I will be posting additional clips from this talk on my own Youtube channel. If you haven’t already, click over to my channel and subscribe to it today so you don’t miss anything.
And of course, also subscribe here if you have not already.
This is a little off topic, but what struck me is that woman are judged by whether they have children or not because it is a self sacrifice. But now with abortion (legalized infanticide), a woman can choose to be selfish.
Aaron, this is good stuff. I think you should package this, along with some of the Masculinist stuff into a book. I’d buy it, so that’s one copy sold. I think you are right to point out that in Evangelical circles it is man wrt woman, but rarely does one speak about man wrt to men. Likely this is because we don’t see church as a communion of men for reasons you’ve explored at length.