The "made man," we all know from movies about the mob, has proven himself; he has been tested and passed muster; he is a stand-up guy; a man of honor whose word can be trusted; he does not back down from a fight; a reliable ally. He earns it the hard way: fights, crimes, hits, years in prison without squealing. Everyone knows: he is not one to be messed with. He has the respect of all.
I want to expand this expression beyond the narrow, romantic aura of the Hollywood crime movie, to a broader, deeper, wholesome understanding of the nature of virility. In primitive, ancient and traditional cultures prior to the secular, androgynous, masculine-phobic, progressive modernity post 1965, young men journeyed an itinerary of formation, testing strengthening, correction and encouragement. Eventually they faced a test of their virility: they survived in the jungle on their own; they prevailed in combat; they endured hardship and suffering with patience and dignity. Having traversed this path and passed the test, they were certified, by the elders, but before the entire community, as MEN: strong, steadfast, trustworthy, prudent, sober, sacrificial, and worthy for marriage, paternity, and leadership. With this recognition and status, the young man breathed a new confidence, an inner serenity, as he continued to grow in gentle strength and wisdom.
Femininity, by sharpest contrast, requires no such itinerary-testing-ordination. The young woman grows into womanhood and accepts maternity fluidly, organically, receptively, floweringly, fragrantly, fruitfully, generously. Specific careers, to be sure, (military, medicine, law, police, fire fighters) have (usually) the same requirements for women as for men. But entry into womanhood itself requires no such itinerary.
The Cultural Revolution, in its hysterical compulsion to homogenize-sterilize gender, destroyed the immense network of virility-oriented training, testing, competition, discipline, and encouragement. The causes of this were multiple: diminishment of physical labor, dependency upon high technology and bureaucracy, militant feminism, contraception, the decline of chastity, a culture of prosperity-indulgence-consumerism, loss of the holy, contempt for tradition, illusions about progress, individualism, the decline of family/community, and the confusion of vicious power for God-given authority.
"The Great Generation," no longer with us, was the last to fully walk the path to virility: they suffered in youth in the Great Depression and then as an entire generation defeated two imperialisms, in the Pacific and Europe. They ALL returned home in 1945, tested and proved and wise and strong, to raise large families and build one of the greatest civilizations in human history and eventually defeat one of the worst, the Soviets. They were tried and tested in hardship and combat.
We boomers, raised in affluence, are soft: self-satisfied, indulgent, materialist, narcissistic, careerist, progressive. We are anti-tradition, anti-authority, anti-combat, anti-communal, anti-supernatural, anti-masculinity.
Result: we have in the West a society sad scarcity of honorable, reliable, paternal men. Through no fault of their own, our young men wander on their own, unguided by a reliable path to masculinity, and become wimps or thugs.
What are we to do?
Before doing anything, we look with delight at Reality. The fact of masculinity/femininity is baked into the Real; into Being; into the birds and the bees; into (Mother) nature; into hormones, neural paths, DNA, body muscle, thinking patterns, emotions, tradition, culture, archetypes, psychology, drama, and religion (certainly the Catholic brand). You can eliminate masculinity/femininity about as much as you can eliminate bedbugs, accurately count the stars in the sky or the sand pebbles in the world. Masculinity, like femininity, is inexorable, inherent, indefatigable, invincible, resilient, inevitable, mysterious, iconic, synergistic, spontaneous, commonplace, noble, generous and miraculous.
Notwithstanding the idiocy, toxicity, dysfunctionality, futility of "(post?)modernity," masculinity and femininity thrive in a million ways, wherever you look. But masculinity to flourish according to its proper God-given, natural, heroic form must be nourished, trained, encouraged.
There remain in place many manly environments which foster virility: sports, military, boy scouts, informal gatherings of men of all ages and for all purposes. But the remaining ones are under constant attack from "woke" anti-masculinity cultural progressivism. We see this in the boy scouts, military, trans-sports, and wherever masculinity thrives as a distinct form.
Returning to the "made man," let us consider the Catholic, as distinct from the mob, version. The Catholic made man is: humble before God, chaste, courageous, reverent and tender to women, pious in the ancient sense of loyal to family and tradition, reliable, steadfast, generous, loyal.
And so, let us attend to the dynamics still around us, in nature-culture-religion, which promise to nurture our young men into virtuous virility. Let us revive ideals of heroism, chivalry, fortitude, purity and sacrfice. Let us encourage our youth on paths to form them as loyal husbands and devoted fathers.
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