The History Channel (by far one of the best set of programming ever produced) is having "Barbarian Week." It has been an exciting series of looking into the past of Western Civilization and understanding the impact that the Vikings, the Goths, the Vandals, the Huns, and other violent groups of people have had on the formation of Western thought and philosophy. There is one trait that makes all of these groups barbarians: the lack of respect for other people's and group's right to life, liberty, and property.
This has prompted me to think about my generation. My generation (Generation X) seems to have lost the respect for others that my father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's generation had. I am seeing a trend in which the men of my generation fall into one or two broad categories; they are either barbarians or they are wimps. A generation of teaching the equality of the sexes has withered away the meaning of manhood.
Manhood is not simply a matter of being male and reaching a certain age. These are acts of nature; manhood is a sustained act of character. It is no easier to become a man than it is to become virtuous. In fact, the two are the same. The root of our old-fashioned word "virtue" is the Latin word virtus, a derivative of vir, or man. To be virtuous is to be "manly." As Aristotle understood it, virtue is a "golden mean" between the extremes of excess and deficiency. Too often among today's young males, the extremes seem to predominate. One extreme suffers from an excess of "manliness", or from misdirected and unrefined manly energies. The other suffers from a lack of manliness, a total want of manly spirit. Call them barbarians and wimps.
Today's barbarians are not hard to find. Like the barbarians of old, the new ones wander about in great packs. You can recognize them by their dress, their speech, their amusements, their manners, and their treatment of women. You will know them right away by their distinctive headgear. They wear baseball caps everywhere they go and in every situation: in class, at the table, indoors, outdoors, while taking a test, while watching a movie, while on a date. They wear these caps frontward, backward, and sideways. They will wear them in church and with suits, if ever a barbarian puts on a suit. Part security blanket, part good-luck charm, these distinctive head coverings unite each barbarian with the rest of the vast barbaric horde.
The ancient barbarians did little except fight and hunt. The modern barbarians do little besides play sports and pursue women. To be sure, they have other amusements. But these activities do not as a rule require sensibility or thought. Indeed, typical barbarian pastimes, like drinking mightily and watching WWF wrestling, seem expressly contrived to stupefy the senses and nullify the intellect.
Young males, of course, have always been rough around the edges. But in the past, their edges were smoothed, in part, by being introduced into female company. Boys learned to behave properly first from their mothers (Thank God for mine) and later around other women and girls. They held open doors, pulled out chairs, stood up when a woman entered a room, stood up in public places to offer their seats, took off their hats in the presence of women, and carefully guarded their language so as not to offend the fair sex. All that is gone. In no other aspect of their conduct is barbarism more apparent among a large number of young men these days than in their treatment of women.
At the other extreme from true manliness is the wimp. Wimps are in many ways the opposite of barbarians. We would be mistaken, however, to classify wimps as simply young men without muscle. Often enough they are the stereotypical 98-pound weaklings who get sand kicked in their faces at the beach. But slightness of build and want of talent in sports do not make one a wimp. The diminutive and sickly James Madison was a man, just as was the towering and vigorous George Washington.
If barbarians suffer from a misdirected manliness, wimps suffer from a want of manly spirit altogether. They lack the part of the soul that contains the assertive passions: pugnacity, enterprise, ambition, anger. These principles compel a man to defend himself, his honor, his lady, his country; as well as universal principles., such as, truth, beauty, goodness, justice. Without men of manly spirit to combat the cruel, the malevolent, and the unjust, goodness and honor hardly have a chance in our precarious world.
Wimps make worthless watchdogs. But their failure as watchdogs or guardians has nothing to do with size or physique. There is an old saying, "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog" that matters. Many of today's young men seem to have no fight in them at all. Not for them to rescue "damsels in distress" from the barbarians. Furthermore, wimps vote. As Aristotle pointed out, to the cowardly, bravery will seem more like rashness and foolhardiness than what it really is. Hence political and social issues that require bravery for their solution elicit only hand-wringing and half-measures from the wimps. Wimps are always looking for the easy way out.
You can also spot a by his approach to dating and relationships. While the barbarian has simple appetites when it comes to women (his ideal is the Playboy playmate and his ultimate aim in any relationship is sex). The wimp, on the other hand, has more complex reasons for wanting women. Although sex is certainly one of his desires, more than sex he needs affirmation. He desperately needs a girlfriend to boost his self-confidence. Having someone else notice him will somehow show the world that he is not a total loser. The wimp also needs someone to hear his laments, to commiserate with him when he is feeling down, to discover his secret self. Since he has few qualities or achievements to recommend him, he seeks to appear "interesting" or mysterious. Initially, the wimp might seem amusing to an unsuspecting young lady and very different from the insensitive jocks and rowdies she has known. Ultimately, however, the wimp seeks to draw her into his web of melancholy and self-pity. The story always ends unhappily since romance cannot be based upon pity or the thin facade of personality. He might mope and whine his way into a woman's bed but will find excuses to avoid "commitment." The wimp will begin the relationship by saying, "You're the only one who understands me" and end it by saying, "You don't understand me at all." The truth is that there is not much to understand.
Needless to say, these sketches are not exhaustive. Barbarians and wimps come in many forms in a society that celebrates Diversity as we do. But all of them remind us that Plato's quandary was a timeless one and is our quandary no less than his. Our civilization cannot be sustained by barbarians or wimps; it needs true men.
