Revision and Evolution

Good Afternoon, All.  Yours truly is watching the Jets play the Giants, as is done once every four years, and marveling how his team is actually playing pretty well today.

Tomorrow, we stop our usual routine to acknowledge our veterans.  Unlike Memorial Day, which commemorates those who paid the ultimate price in military conflict on our nation's behalf, we have the advantage of actually showing gratitude to those veterans who made it home alive after their service.  Given the background, this is probably the holiday that deserves barbecues and warm weather, and not the other one.  However, history has used much different criteria for when, or if, to schedule national holidays.

For my own purposes, as the years have passed, this holiday has challenged me to examine some of my own beliefs.  When I started this blog, I had a very unfavorable view of tough-guy types, also known as alpha males.  Actually, that's an understatement - I went beyond having an unfavorable view of alpha males.  Instead, I demonized them.  I bashed them, maligned them, and made them seem less-than. 

This approach seemed completely valid to me, even justified.  Having experienced enough of these types behave less than respectfully to me, it seems completely natural to give them a "taste of their own medicine."  There was unfinished business, and this seemed like the way to finish it.  Ironically, this was done several years before the Gillette Corporation aired the "toxic masculinity" commercial.  My name for it was actually somewhat harsher.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I have seen that a different tone and perspective is a better way of addressing those who harmed me, and all those like them.

(1)  Yes, there really are alpholes.  They do exist, and everything they do proves it. 
(2)  They aren't only male.  There are also very many women who behave the same way, and benefit from a bubble of immunity and impunity.
(3)  However, their mere existence does not affect us as much as previously thought.
(4)  If they harm us enough physically, our society provides for criminal and civil remedies that provide penalties and compensation as consequences for such uncivilized behavior.
(5)  However, if all they are doing is annoying us through words and tone, we can actually decide that we're not affected by it in the slightest, let alone triggered.  Instead, the more disrespect and unpleasantness they produce, the more they will be receiving in return, until they decide for themselves to change their ways.

What I'm trying to say, given my discovery of ancient Stoicism, is that those who behave in ways we don't appreciate, or those whom we dislike, miss the Second of the Four Pillars:  THEY EXIST, BUT THEY DO NOT MATTER.  AND BY EXTENSION, THEY DO NOT BELONG IN OUR THOUGHTS, AND DO NOT DESERVE OUR ATTENTION.

This brings me back to Veterans' Day, and why this revelation is relevant to this holiday.  Until recently, it has been mostly men who answered our nation's call to war for our country.  Mostly men who fought the British at Valley Forge, fought on both sides of the Civil War, went to Europe to defeat the Nazis in World War II, endured losses in Vietnam, and defeated terrorism in the Middle East.  It is nothing more than a slap in the face to our country's armed forces to assume that every tough guy is a force for evil.  Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard are anything but, and should never again be thought of that way.  If anything, they exemplify the best that healthy masculinity can, and does, achieve.

Unlike the aforementioned miscreants, our Veterans EXIST, MATTER, BELONG, AND MOST DEFINITELY DESERVE.  There is no otherwise.

So let this be my salute and my gratitude to all US Veterans.  My comfort and safety is due in no small part to your training, tactics, and indefatigable courage. 

I thank you all.

I EXIST.  I MATTER.  I BELONG.  I DESERVE.

RESPECT ALL.  BEFRIEND FEW.  LOVE ONE.  HATE NONE.

MOTHER PROTECT US, FATHER EMBOLDEN US.

STOICISM.  EMOTIONAL MATURITY.  POINT OF EVAPORATION.

Emotional Maturity IS The Best A Man Can Get!

Good Morning All, and welcome to the middle portion of Martin Luther King weekend.

There has been some controversy regarding a 90-second commercial produced by Gillette.  It questions whether some of society's ills, which have often been perpetrated by men, truly are "the best a man can get," which plays off the company's earlier slogan from the 1990's.

The commercial shows what would be solutions to the problem:  fathers stopping fights between their young children and teaching them that bullying is not the right way to treat people; men calling out their friends and associates to not act inappropriately around women, and basically reminding us that being a man does not mean the same thing it did in prehistoric times.

The vast overwhelming majority of men already know that rape is wrong, that women should not be spoken to disrespectfully, and (maybe the overwhelming majority doesn't want to admit this) bullying is also unacceptable, and any father who wants to earn respect has an obligation to teach his children not to behave that way.

This commercial has given yours truly cause for reflection.

(1)  It's been a very long time since I used the term "alphole."  I have made a conscious effort not to demonize "tough guys," macho types, or high-conflict individuals because everyone deserves respect, particularly those who are different from me.  The fact that I personally don't like the way a person carries himself or herself doesn't invalidate them as human beings.  I certainly can't take back the multiple times I've taken them to task - they're out there forever - but I can certainly chart my own evolution.

(2)  However, there are still people who hurt others.  And they often receive no consequences to speak of because they somehow always have a throng of enablers, followers, hangers-on, and fraaaaaaands who reinforce what they do.  This ad brought back a reminder of that reality.

(3)  If more men raised their children first to not bully those weaker than them, it would be a simple logical extension and expansion of this rule to treat women with more respect, those of other races and nationalities with more respect, and the entire balance of humanity with more respect as well.  That would be an absolute good.

(4)  Saying this does not demonize all men.  We already know that most men are not predators and narcissists - despite the shocking percentage of them that actually are - therefore there is no need to be offended by this advertisement.  Rather, this is an admonition and a wake-up call that the rest of humanity no longer wants to tolerate unwarranted aggression, plain and simple.

(5)  And yes, of course, though we are not likely to see any commercials addressing this, there are women who are just as predatory, just as evil, just as vicious, and just as wrong as the worst men could be.  This commercial might not bring it up, but this page certainly does not let them off the hook from the same exact behavior.  We do not accept this behavior from men or women, and we don't permit either of them to use their gender for means of exoneration.

There is toxic masculinity, and there is no denying its existence.  And there are women who are just as toxic as any male can be.

Let's put aside our need to condemn what this commercial says, and make an effort to understand why it's being said.  And when we're finished doing that, let's raise the next generation with a better understanding of right and wrong.  Once the desire to bully is eliminated, the need to "teach kids to fight" will disappear, and we just might have a more peaceful and less divisive world to live in.

I EXIST.                                                                                                                     RESPECT ALL.
I MATTER.                                                                                                             BEFRIEND FEW.
I BELONG.                                                                                                                       LOVE ONE.
I DESERVE.                                                                                                                   HATE NONE.

                                                      MOTHER PROTECT US.
                                                     FATHER EMBOLDEN US.

                                                     EMOTIONAL MATURITY