Trying and Failing to Explain the Ambiguous: The concept of Masculinity

What is masculinity? What are masculinities?

‘Masculinity’, as the Oxford English Dictionary states, is “The state or fact of being masculine; the assemblage of qualities regarded as characteristic of men; maleness, manliness.” Looking further, ‘masculine’ is “Of a personal attribute, an action, etc.: having a character befitting or regarded as appropriate to the male sex; vigorous, powerful. Of a man: manly, virile.” ‘Masculinities’are properties, characteristics, or behaviours considered typical to men.

While these answers seem to answer the question in reality they don’t. They’re vague and ambiguous, they leave a lot still unanswered. What are the characteristics of men? What befits them? What’s typical? Their ambiguity comes from the fact that ‘masculinity’ and what’s considered ‘manly’ is defined by one’s culture and society. 

 ‘Manliness’ is in part a cultural ideal that men are encouraged to aspire to; like a guideline of how they should act and what whey they should live.  Some re-occurring themes in this ideal are: leadership, being family-oriented (head of a family), virile, being a good provider (the head money-maker and thus the one putting the food on the table), being athletic, and being able to defend and protect others (including your country). These are some of the characteristics that are universally found as cultural ideals for men throughout history (Professor Parker has mentioned that the Odyssey could be seen as a cultural guideline for the ancient Greek men; it has these elements found in it). 

But yet this ideal doesn’t resonate with the images of ‘manliness’ that I have in my head. Where do beards, perverted jokes and muscles come into play? The answer to that is the social definition of ‘manliness’ or the stereotype of men.  Mass media has spread a certain idea to what men should be and how they look, act and think. TV, magazines, they all project a certain image of what is manly and what isn’t (aka what is feminine). This image is fundamentally based on sex, on reproduction, and what we are told to value in our modern society that will achieve it (wealth, looks, and popularity). It can be said that society is essentially based on reproduction; that the majority of our social interactions are to find mates. The media feed into this by selling attraction- they attach products or ideas to elements that are perceived to attract the opposite sex (whether what is perceived is actually what attracts the other gender or not and depending on what they’re trying to sell and to which gender).

 Essentially the media has taken ‘manliness’ and marketed it. Take the Old Spice or Dos Equis ‘most interesting man in the world’ ads: the old spice ad is trying to sell deodorant to men, but they do this by playing on the stereotype of what women want and directing their attention to female audiences, “The man your man could smell like”, which in turn gets the attention of men; the Dos Equis ad shows the ‘most interesting man in the world’ being surrounded by women, fame and riches and plays on the idea that if you drink their beer you can get them too. Not only are they playing on the idea of manliness, but they are also defining it in this manner. Besides ads like these, Tv and movies defines the image of what is manly with shows that depict ‘manly’ characters behaving in certain ways to which then we associate these behaviours with being manly, an example being the characters Clint Eastwood plays in his western movies. 

But what is Masculinity? In 1984 for example on p.33, “The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it.” This is a dream Winston is having, yet he doesn’t feel any desire to a women’s naked body? That definitely goes against the media portrayal that men are always horny, because being manly requires that a man have a long list of sexual conquests; this is one of the media’s stereotypes of manliness which has roots to the cultural ideal of men being virile. Looking back on the definition of masculinity, “The state or fact of being masculine; the assemblage of qualities regarded as characteristic of men; maleness, manliness,” I find that I have no real clue on any definite aspects to masculinity. There’s the physical difference of men, and the general stereotypes portrayed in media that I can use to reference so I guess masculinity can be defined as ‘chiseled jaws and broad shoulders’ or I could go with the traditional models of masculinity and specific male areas of life to define it (specific jobs associated with men), but that would be outdated in our modern days with women invading those areas and showing their own proficiency in it.  So I must wrap this blog up with the answer of “I don’t know” this is really such a vague topic that I really can’t put my finger on something and go, ‘aha, this is masculinity!’

masculine, adj. and n.

Third edition, December 2000; online version September 2011. <http://www.oed.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/view/Entry/114561>; accessed 15 November 2011. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1905.

masculinity, n.

Third edition, December 2000; online version September 2011. <http://www.oed.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/view/Entry/114566>; accessed 15 November 2011. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1905.

Masculinities, n.

http://www.scrabblefinder.com/word/masculinities/

old spice ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpUrz9RvuPk&feature=autoplay&list=SPB9F260CE56D04E73&lf=list_related&playnext=2

Dos Equis ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U18VkI0uDxE

Freud's unattainable happiness; while unattainable it is still possible.

Sigmund Freud was a complex thinker, obvious in his writing of "Civilization and its Discontents". In fact his explanation on his thoughts can become quite distracting and confusing in accordance to what question he is trying to address to the simple reader. One such example is his explanation to happiness and its attainability. He discusses in great detail the processes and methods to happiness from pages 42 to 56, involving a very complex explanation to what drives happiness and the methods in such employed to achieve it. In its entirety he weaves between the two ideas that happiness is both wholly possible and entirely impossible; However, for the sake of my brain and understanding of his argument, I would say that Freud's viewpoint ran towards the more negative answer that happiness is essentially unattainable and fruitless pursuit."

Freud's basic reasoning towards this is that happiness is based on the "pleasure principal" that dominates our minds drive for happiness the aims for the moments of feeling pleasure and the  decreased  feelings of pain and 'unpleasure' in our lives. In simplistic terms happiness is the "(preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only possible as an episodic phenomenon" (p.43). Essentially what he is suggesting is that happiness is the meeting of our needs in such a way that if met on a continual basis it loses the perceived enjoyment being met. That essentially happiness is fleeting and based on the infrequent satisfaction of our desires.

From this stance he goes into detailed and long description of what he calls the 'methods to happiness'; which are essentially based on the idea that one can be happy by merely escaping unhappiness or surviving suffering of the causes towards pain and 'unpleasure'. To summarize them all into the point that Freud was trying to make (as it appears to me) is that everyone has a different set of desires, in regards to happiness, and methods to fulfill them; there is no one way to achieve happiness as it is a lifestyle pursuit unique to the individual. He also pushes the thought that one's desires are limitless, that they are as vast and numerous as to the possibilities of what we can imagine.

Thus we gather the conclusion from Freud that happiness, which is based on the pleasure principle, cannot be fulfilled; as we cannot obtain all that we desire in regards to the economical problems to achieving the satisfaction of the individual's 'libido' (desires) (p.54).

However in regards to answering the question of whether or not it is possible to be happy or not as asked by the first blog topic, the answer is quite obvious. Freud had to have thought that happiness was possible; his entire argument is based on the achievability of happiness, which cannot be argued without the premise that happiness is possible. While he does conclude that happiness cannot be fulfilled he doesn't say that it isn't possible, just that it is a tricky business to obtain.

Most likely, probably, in perspective 100% legitimate.

I think that the charges in the case against Socrates are legitimate. He did corrupt the youth from the standards of his society, and while I don’t think that he was impious in not believing in the gods, he did bring in a new thought (the being that was always with him) that could be interpreted, as it was, as a new god that he did follow alongside the gods. 

He did corrupt the Athenian youth. The Oxford dictionary defines corruption as “To render morally unsound or ‘rotten’; to destroy the moral purity or chastity of; to pervert or ruin (a good quality); to debase, defile.” And it is society, the majority of people, who defines what is morally sound or rotten, decides what a good quality is and what a bad quality is. This was more so the case in Ancient Greece (and any ancient culture). We have to look and judge this case not by our standards and our realities but by the ones of the ancient culture and society that the case was made in; we cannot look at this in a modern perspective but an ancient one. In our perspective he may have enlightened the young Athenians, opened their minds to be aware of fundamental truths and realities (ones that may have even clashed by the ones society believed in), however the society we live in is a more libertine society as we like free thought, we can like people who live outside the box and question our society’s standards and such because to an extent we all do it, it is our norm. Socrates’s society was not a libertine one; in comparison with us his society was extremely conservative, where conformity was received better. This is especially so when we take in the consideration that the Athenian society had just gone through the ardous Peloponnesian War and most society’s that go through war adapt a viewpoint of ‘us against them’ or when they turn more fervently to their own society’s standards and reject all other societys viewpoints and viewpoints that clash with their own (take for example American society, after World War II they were so fervent in their own society’s standards that they went on to try to make it the world’s standards). In this perspective and understanding we can say that Socrates did corrupt the Athenian youth, he himself could be viewed as corrupted as he didn’t act in the normal manner of an Athenian by going out and starting discussions and arguments with everyone and anyone especially with how his arguments were formed which would have seemed very strange (considering the socratic method twists thoughts around, and continously loop back, it would have been new to the average Athenian), and with it he questioned every belief of his society, every thought, and generally his answers came into conflict with his society’s beliefs. He was outside of his society and he brought other people with him to the outside, in his questioning of his society even inadvertantly he’s changing the perspectives of the youth. We see it as him enlightening them but to the eyes of the Greeks? What he was doing would be seen as corruption and thus we can say, in his society’s perspective, he was fairly put on trial for it.

Now was Socrates impious? This is a bit harder to look at; from our understanding he believed full-heartedly in the gods, however we also know that he also believed in another being that was with him constantly and guided him. Now this might have been his conscious, maybe? But in the Society’s viewpoint, since he looked more towards this little voice, it could have been seen as a belief in monotheism and a rejection of their pantheon of gods. At the least we could say that by introducing this new being he was putting up competition between it and the gods, an act against the gods, even inadvertantly, and from there we can say he was impious. But really do we know what piety is or what the Athenian society would have seen it as, or what Socrates himself actually did on this subject? There is too little known on this subject to actually prove if he was impious or pious. There is too little evidence and too many unknowns for me to say whether this charge was fair or not.

I n conclusion I would say that the charges against Socrates are most likely legitimate; he did corrupt the Athenian youth against his society’s norms and standards, their definition of morality, and though there is not enough knowledge about impiety or how he was impious, bringing another ‘thing’ alongside the pantheon of gods seems almost like bringing in a new god to believe in (Pious or impious? I don’t really know).

Sources:

corrupt, v.

Second edition, 1989; online version September 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/42035>; accessed 07 October 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1893.

Is it possible to feel contantly guilty of the suffering of others?

Unless you are the cause of guilt and seeing the other party constantly then it is improbable to feel constantly guilty. This is because if you did not do something to someone else then you have nothing to be guilty for and if you aren't being constantly assailed by a reminder of them (i.e. seeing them all the time), thus being reminded of the guilt, you tend to forget about it all together as other things come up to occupy your time and thoughts.

Well... At least in my case this is what happens. Take for example the starving children in Africa, do I feel guilty all the time over them? No. Mainly because I don't really have anything to be guilty for, I haven't personally gone and starved them. (If we look at the save-the-kids ads then the main cause of the African children's suffering is caused by drought and an aids epidemic. My being born into the developed world really doesn't play into their suffering, just in relieving their suffering.) But every time I see one of the save-the-kids ad I feel a twinge of guilt because I have  the money that could go into helping them but I'm not giving it to them; however, if I don't see the ad I don't feel guilty because I'm not being reminded, anywhere in my daily life, that there is millions of children dying in Africa.

However, I feel very guilty if I got in an arguement with a friend or parent and said something nasty that really hurt them. Mainly because I caused that pain and suffering to them and because it effects the relationship I have with them. I'm reminded constantly that I've hurt them whenever I see them which is essentially all the time. So until I've apologized and fixed things, I feel guilty about it almost all the time (I find that I can't be feeling guilty when I'm thinking about something else, or doing something else that occupies my thoughts-- perhaps I'm easily distracted?).

So to summarize I would say that no it's impossible to feel constantly guilty of the suffering of others. Mainly because it's impossible for a person to be constantly thinking about their suffering; what occurs in our daily lives takes up our time and thoughts and takes our attention and feelings away from thinking about these 'others'. Though if these people are close to us, feeling guilty can occupy a good chunk of our time.