Some men are drawing on their anger to point accusing fingers at others as the source of “the problem”, while others are feeling increasing guilt for the various ways “they” have hurt and victimized the various groups which are claiming restitution for the “crimes of their fathers”.

I hope the following material demonstrates how males are as much victims of the modern society they assisted in building as the many and varied groups which daily are directing rage towards them.  Additionally, I hope to validate the idea that IF the men who helped to unknowingly create our modern day nightmares do not assertively promote helpful changes for all individuals, THEN they are doomed to extinction like the dinosaurs of old.  (While the exact cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction is still debated, the fact that they no longer exist is relevant to the current, delicate state of all mankind, including the individuals, their social orders, the Earth’s environment and living creatures, and its’ males in particular).

My own interest grew out of the collapse of my family (divorce) while I was in high school.  In hindsight, the social stigma of divorce enabled me to look beyond the traditions of individuals and groups, changing “what was” into the consequences of “what might become”.  I learned the value of changing “should” to “could” and the idea that “right and wrong” was more beneficial if it became “what helps or what hurts all the parties involved”.  In short, while being the victim of a society which declared people “bad” and “wrong” for “failing” at a “desired goal” – marriage and children – I learned society was teaching dysfunctional procedures which equated to be “bad” AND it was always someone’s fault.  With the current divorce rate at around 50 percent, and only a very small minority living the traditional family of father as financial head and mother staying home, a lot of American people have fallen into a similar circumstance, yet we still promote an idea we can no longer make work.  I am not suggesting throwing out the idea, but going back to the drawing-board to discover what has gone wrong.  I believe much of it can be traced to our masculine value system.

Fortunately, due to the insight of a few people who emerged as mentors to the intellectual constructs I learned, there are a variety of ways of looking at the same set of facts.  The interpretation of those facts either sets the future into a rigid conclusion which “was doomed to happen” or the involved individuals might alter their actions and help actualize new, innovative, on-going conclusions based on their insights of the ever-changing present.  This creates an ever-evolving future where relative values enable involved members to create a positively increasing future, IF they remain ACTIVE and FLEXIBLE in their thinking.

In the present case of men, there is a current trend to judge them guilty of malice with forethought towards other groups and individuals, thereby determining they are ultimately responsible for ALL negative situations currently existing.  While this short-sighted judgment may bring some needed and valuable affirmation (and even some rare restitution to the “victims”), it does little to help produce equity and long-term peace for all mankind, including ALL men, women, children and their future offspring.

Without learning this lesson, various groups of men will continue to increase their strength (as in preparation for battle) only to bankrupt their country’s physical and emotional reserves, finally winning “the battle to end all battles”.  With such power brought into play, if the plans do not go exactly as hindsight dictates (“It should have been…”), based on complete satisfaction of all parties involved, we may either blow ourselves off the face of the earth or enslave all people to one powerful, ruling force.

How do such disastrous consequences result as “a man does what a man’s got to do?”  It is not only the actions which helped create the world’s current troubles, it is also the premises, which go with them.   I contend some of these policies are the result of a male-oriented viewpoint.  Since men have been in charge of making societies’ policies, it is hard to separate the “maleness” from the politics… but I will try.

A quick example might come from examining traditional “male” roles in our society.  Men are taught to view other men as “enemies”, “competitors”, or as “superiors/inferiors”.  There is always an assumed level of comparison difference, any difference.  It MUST be judged as to its situation.  While this may have been helpful during early days when some groups indeed tried to take advantage of the relative weakness of others, it has gone on to become a state of being which implies that this judging is always helpful and therefore necessary.  It does not take into account situations based on trust where there are perceived differences overlooked for the benefit of all (beginning with the Magna Charta).  It also does not take into account the new situation where men are finding themselves living in a ‘global village’.  Due to increased travel, increased communication, the dawning of the Age of Communication, and complex interactive international negotiations, when men now try to take advantage or negatively judge one another, it creates negative consequences for all, which brings direct problems back to the initial creator.

We need to learn to create ‘win – win’ situations and insist both sides work until this state is agreed to in fact and feeling.  Nothing less will allow equity and peace to be achieved, and until we perceive ourselves as equals, we cannot work within a state of cooperation.  Some will say this already exists in ‘team spirit’, but teams in sports and business are always “against” the other side.  We now have a situation where the other side no long can exist due to the costs and potential/actual destruction.  The author John Naisbitt presents effective discussion and illustration in his books: “Re-Inventing the Corporation” and “Megatrends 2000”.  On the family or interpersonal level, the book “When I Say No I Feel Guilty”, by Jon Smith, presents effective systems for negotiation without the need for hostility.

Women have been practicing many of these techniques since they took up the role of ‘peacekeeper/housemaker’ centuries ago.  They have learned the usefulness of cooperation, compromise, and looking ahead to the problems of action (i.e. the simple task of childproofing a house to protect individuals who do not yet have the ability to think about consequences).  Many men continue to believe they can do as they “feel” and someone will be there to clean up or pick up after them.  In a descending level of accepting burdens, slaves, servants, housewives, spouses, children and their chores, grandparents and their house sitting have all shown just how much they were no longer willing to take, when they have a choice.  Slowly, these people have been liberated from ‘male supremacy’.  Now, perhaps, it is men’s turn, too.  From our politicians, who refuse to build a budget we can actually live/survive with, to the men who abuse their wives and children believing they will stay, to the men who abuse their bodies through alcohol and drug abuse and lack of exercise, these individuals are living in a dream that is quickly turning into a nightmare where they indeed may die.

 As I proposed in a 1983 paper, “The Demise of the Masculine American Culture”, many/most men are not thinking about their ‘macho man’ lifestyles.  In the initial stage of dealing with death, there is a denial that the important person/event is no longer there.  In this case, it is the death of the basic components of masculinity being “good” for everyone which men refuse to accept as no longer “good”, acceptable or even desirable.

If we look to the amount of time, energy and money that goes into promoting ‘professional sports’, I believe we have a classic example of the lengths men will resort to for the continued promotion and survival of aggressive, competitive feelings.  Team members may change membership due to their own welfare – money – but the idea of a group identity lives on in the fans who do not believe they feel OK without it.  On an international level, the current interest in ‘professional wrestling’ might illustrate the lengths Americans will go to in creating fantasies of ‘good, god-like men’ winning out over ‘evil’.  Children attending or watching these clearly eat it up and grow up to believe that somehow they “should” also be able to ‘make their mark on society’ for the good of their country, group, organization or family.  Various forms of “ism” march on (i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, Americanism in Europe and Asia, etc.).  All of the concepts are not necessarily “bad”, but too many are clearly for the promotion of one minority member at the expense of another.

For those men, and the women who are taking up the ‘male lifestyle’ of aggressive business practices, there are specific costly consequences, too.  Health costs in the form of treatment versus prevention are being used as a ‘club’ for contract negotiations.  Business is beginning to assertively say they cannot/will not continue to clean up after employees who abuse themselves.  They are transferring more of the costs back to the employees through deductibles, co-payments and lost benefits, including therapy/counseling due to the expense, often without clearly demonstrating benefits/goals.  Substance abuse (including alcohol and prescriptions), spouse abuse (both male and female), child abuse (physical, sexual and emotional), self-abusive practices (including spending, eating, smoking, depressive avoidance, ‘couch potato’ sedentary television and avoidance of adulthood careers/responsibilities) are all, I believe, in part, consequences of masculine-oriented thinking taken to extremes.

We have come to confuse “normal” with “common” and end up believing that what is common is expected because it is somehow normal.  It is not normal for people to live as so many of us do, unless we are greatly hurting and fearful of what is around us.  We have created a society that feels and acts much like the enemy we fought for centuries.  We have become our own worst enemies.  That is what hate, anger and fear can do when they are allowed to go unguarded and uncontrolled in the world.  In the family, it was the female who was “supposed” to keep men under control for the sake of the family.  Without such fair controls, consciously or left to the possible goodwill of others, the current state of the world is as would be expected.

While there are other ways of coming to these practices, too, in most of the cases I see it is a lifestyle of believing a person is ‘above the law’ that encourages taking risks and promoting habits that clearly are not affordable, are harmful and even deadly.  These are individuals who believe it is their “right” to do as they please (feel) and someone else will just have to put up with it.

Within the boundaries that mankind has had to live, until the Industrial and Information Ages enabled him to overcome many of them, there were natural limits which managed to keep him relatively safe (and his political/social responsibilities under him).  The costs and extremes to which these boundaries have been taken are finally coming to our conscious minds, and the costs are staggering!!!

While ‘maleness’ is not inherently “bad”, taken to its current extreme, without rational control or costs to the authority figures, we end up as our society currently is.  We, as males, are not “bad” people, but our habits are killing us and those we care so much about.  We are creating so much waste and poisonous by-products that we will soon have little space in which to survive, let alone live with satisfaction.  We need to learn how to appreciate ourselves as the fragile human beings with a whole host of feelings, then learn how to care for ourselves (including how to get our physical and emotional components into relative states of happiness), and then reach out helping hands to those who are still hurting.  When we are relatively healthy and happy men, or families, groups, countries, companies and the Earth will also be contented and happy, as well as able to survive.

(Copyright 1990 Dale G. Ross) Dale Ross is a private therapist/counselor and educator in Southfield, MI (since 1985).  You can contact him with comments/questions at:  206 Americana Plaza, 28475 Greenfield, Southfield, MI 48076, telephone:  (248) 544-7041, and e-mail: RealitiesUnlimited@Comcast.net

This article previously appeared in the April, 1991 issue of “Dispatch” (Michigan Alcohol & Addiction Association), and the November 1990 edition of the Spectrum Resource Center Newsletter.