The health of a culture can often be measured by the health of its men. Physically, mentally, and spiritually. Just about all things in culture are downstream from the men of that culture. The culture, the women, the children, the government, and everything else. Most of everything is downstream from the men of a tribe, nation, community, or even family. This isn’t to say other things don’t play their role simply what flows from what.
There are a lot of problems with the Western world and Western men in particular. I should note that when I say Western I’m not referring to a certain geographical location, nation, or race but rather the process of modernization that will be soon be seen across the world. It’s adopting a certain set of beliefs, living a certain lifestyle, and subscribing to certain ideologies, and much more. So don’t get too caught up in Western meaning North America or Europe as it applies across the board.
Though if we look this disease or whatever you want to call it did start in Western countries. But that’s beside the point, what we’re looking at here is how this happened, why it’s bad, what to do if you suffer from it, and addressing how these things come up. Knowledge is power, never forget that. Regardless if you just want to live the best life possible as a man yourself or if you want to help fix that which you see around you what I’m laying out here is going to be relevant. So let’s start with immaturity.
The Immaturity Of Western Males
Immaturity can mean a lot of different things. When we look at maturity or immaturity we’re generally looking at a cluster of different things. When I was teaching I was blown away by the lack of maturity that I saw from some of the kids there. Not just in that they were rambunctious or didn’t pay attention. To me that’s natural and with the way school is taught to be expected. I mean rather in a lack of life experience way.
And it’s not just school that I saw this in but culture wide for the most part. These males lack life experience, many of them lack suffering and pain and therefore don’t get the great fruits that such things produce. Not pain as in torture and abuse but rather pain as in striving and doing tough things. If homework is a kids biggest “struggle” I don’t think they’re going to turn out very well. Granted there were kids from more traditional cultures that didn’t suffer from this but it was pretty widespread.
A male loses something when he doesn’t struggle, when he doesn’t strive, when he doesn’t fight. When he doesn’t have his nose bloodied and has never been pushed into the dirt and had to fight back out of it. Males who don’t struggle lose that grit, that solidness that is so essential to masculinity. They lose that backbone that is so critically important to so much. Males need trial and they need hardship. In order to grow and become men.
Low Level Masculinity
And even those that do, do some things right aren’t helped along and developed into something more. Those with small traces of masculinity aren’t shaped and brought to full bore, so to speak. There’s a lot of gymbro masculinity, wannabe gangster masculinity, and other things that fall short of the real thing. I don’t mean this in a “Real men are moralist” fashion but rather in that traditional masculine fashion. The gymbro and wannabe gangster are searching but they’re usually not finding more.
They don’t get to that next level. They don’t refine themselves to become stronger, tougher, wiser, and smarter. They stay at that low level of “masculinity”, which is really just a faint, often distorted, echo of the real thing. At best they can be scaffold to build the real thing off of but in reality they end up in infinite loops or something one “grows out of” yet loses the good parts of. One goes from male to male with inclinations to become a man back to being a male. Not a good path to take.
So even for males who do want to be and become more. To have strength, honor, and the virtues that make up masculinity they are presented with limited false choices by our society and those that run it. They are never shown how to become more, how to be more, how to get to that next level. They stay at these low levels of masculinity, if they could even be called that, and never become stronger, tougher, wiser, and more. They never become to finished and refined product.
The Problem & The Solution
Where does this all come from? To answer that would require a books worth of writing so I’ll summarize and address some things. Most Western males lack strong father figures, if they do have fathers they’re often weak or not present, not engaged in actually fathering. And those that do engage in actual fathering are often too weak to be really effective. Likewise most Western males are overmothered, coddled and protected, and never allowed to grow up, to gain strength, and to become men.
Another thing is not being exposed to trials and hardships. Things that through human existence, life provided plenty of, but not so much anymore for certain people. Trials and hardship and life experience. There’s a difference between someone who’s been punched and the face and someone who hasn’t. That’s not the only gauge but there’s something to it. Males need trial, they need struggle, and they need hardships. Without them they don’t grow and they remain soft, weak, and ineffectual.
Another thing is Western culture and ideology teaches a version of reality that runs counter to how the world actually works. No one is equal, tribalism is natural and healthy, strength is good and weakness bad, supporting other tribes over your own if foolish. These truths and many others will be seen as evils by the average brained washed Western male, so essentially the average Western male. Solving for these and you have solved the problem.
What This Means For You
What this means for you is going to depend on who you are. Are you a young male yourself? Then you should seek challenge and trial to strive and prove yourself. Granted, you should be doing this regardless of your age but this matters especially in the earlier years. If you’re older but not established in your masculinity then do the same thing. I know an older family man who started boxing just for this reason. Had a great job, was respected by peers, but knew he had a softness he wasn’t comfortable with. So he started boxing and has been better for it.
And if you’re a man confident in his masculinity then grow and help others. Your family, your community, and those around you. We all have something that we can do. We all have a path to take and there is always work to be done. True rest if for the next world, not for this one, if there even if a next world. And who knows, maybe this world is just the warmup?
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
