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THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE LOST MASCULINITY OF THE AMERICAN ELITE

Arch-Cliopatriarch Ralph Luker drew attention to the tartly -written essay by Harvey Manstein in the New Criterion ” The Manliness of Theodore Roosevelt” , where Mansfield, notable for his own political incorrectness, reflects on T.R.’s now unfashionable philosophy of living a manly and ” strenuous life”:

“TR appeals to some conservatives today for his espousal of big government and national greatness, and all conservatives rather relish his political incorrectness. As a reforming progressive he used to appeal to liberals, but nowadays liberals are put off by the political incorrectness that conservatives rather sneakily enjoy. Conservatives keep their admiration under wraps because they fear the reaction of women should they celebrate his manliness. Liberals have delivered themselves, in some cases with discernible reluctance (I am thinking of President Clinton), to the feminists. Yet they too are concealing an embarrassment. Nothing was more obvious than Roosevelt’s manliness because he made such a point of it not only in his own case but also as necessary for human progress. It was being a progressive that made him so eager to be manly. Here is gristle to chew for liberals and conservatives, both of whom—except for the feminists—have abandoned manliness mostly out of policy rather than abhorrence. With the Library of America’s publication of his Letters and Speeches and The Rough Riders, An Autobiography, let’s see how Roosevelt’s manliness was at the center of his politics.[1] “

Masculinity as a value has been rejected by our modern political elite, something crudely but effectively highlighted some time ago by Kim DuToit. Culturally, the cult of things male remains very much alive in the great swath of the public that keep mostly below the media radar because they favor NASCAR events, rodeos, gun shows, unapologetic magazines like MAXIM and appear only to create electoral upsets for oddball candidates for office like Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Personally, I don’t think the beltway political elite communicates all that effectively with this mostly apolitical demographic. The Left holds them in disdain as neanderthals, proto-fascist boobs, religious fanatics and homophobic racists of Red State country. The Right sends forth wine-sipping, Ivy League graduate, intellectuals on Sunday talk shows to awkwardly pose as rhetorical” tough guys ” but few genuine tough guys seem to climb their ranks. Or last very long if they get there.

This social discomfort with unabashed masculine values exhibited by our elite or a cognitively dissonant relationship to them, in the case of cynical attempts to win over ” Nascar Dads” as a voting bloc, is a commentary on the undigested social revolution of the sixties. We seem to be unable as a country to form a consensus on what it is we believe so we settle for a superficial and often deeply resented public hypocrisy that shreds under stress into vitriolic debate.

Honesty and coherence might go over better.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN THE PALEOANTHROPOLOGIST

First Hobbits and now Dwarves. Can the Orcs be far behind ?

CHANGES MAY BE COMING SOON TO ZENPUNDIT

I’m close to giving up on Blogger as a home for Zenpundit based partly upon recent frustrations and some good advice from Sir Francis Younghusband of Coming Anarchy fame. Having heard all-too accurate tech related criticisms in the past from such worthies as praktike, Mithras and P6 among others, I have to face facts – since my days usually run around 19 hours, the chances of me fitting in the extra time to learn the tech angle better isn’t going to happen soon and I should accept help from someone who knows what they are doing. Help that Younghusband has been kind enough to offer.

I have some basic information to check out first, but I envision going this route soon. Many thanks to Younghusband and those of you who have been steadily prodding me in this direction.

RECOMMENDED READING [Updated]

Intriguing ideas from the depths of the Blogosphere ( though primarily my blogroll)

A big Zenpundit Welcome to the Eide Neurolearning Blog ! ENB is run by Fernette and Brock Eide a husband and wife team of M.D.’s who specialize in working with children with learning disabilities. I first became aware of ENB via BusinessPundit and Corante and came way impressed with the Brock’s theories of learning and brain function which strongly correlate with my own experience and research. Check out their latest post on Buddhist meditation and brain wave function!

Stuart Berman has a a typically thoughtful post up on IT security, relationships, politics and culture. A nice synthesis of issues. Lots of links too. I’ve been trying to cajole a comment out of Stu on quantum encryption issues but without success thus far ;o)

Changes at The Asia Pages. The lovely, world-travelling, founder Jodi has retired from blogging. I was sad to read about her departure as The Asia Pages had really started to come into its own in the last year when Jodi began adding more real-world social observations as a Korean-American expatriate, to the politics and econ of modernizing Asia. Jodi’s handpicked successor, ” Bluejives” is bringing a new take and visually skillful presentation to The Asia Pages and I encourage you to keep abreast of how the blog evolves under Bluejives direction.

Colonel Austin Bay interviews former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Aside from being a highly intelligent writer, Bay represents the intersection of professional journalism, blogging and active-duty military service ( Bay just completed, I believe, a tour in Iraq).

Flaming Duck on how ” do something ” drives government growth. Plus, I just like the name
” Flaming Duck”.

UPDATE:

Cole and Collounsbury: Collounsbury offers his take on Sunni-Shiite violence prompted by Juan Cole’s views on the same.

(It also just occurred to me in writing this post that sometime I really should decide on a consistent model of transliteration for Arabic to English. For example, I use ” al Qaida” which also pops up in the media as ” al Qai’ada”, ” al Qae’ada” and ” al Qaeda”. Likewise, I generally, I write ” Hezbollah” and not ” Hizbullah” or ” Hezb’ ullah” though not for any reason other than habit and I have no idea of ” al Qaida” is consistent in usage style with ” Hezbollah” . Collounsbury often uses a Francophone influenced model while Cole does not. Any thoughts here are welcome since Arabic seems to have less of a transliteration consensus among linguists than, say, Chinese, with most MSM outlets using the Pinyin system )

JOHN BOYD, IRAQ AND THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

In the April issue of The Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows draws attention to the followers of strategist John Boyd – Chet Richards, G.I. Wilson and Greg Wilcox – who maintain the excellent site Defense and the National Interest. Specifically, Fallows recommends reading their ” Fourth Generation Warfare and OODA Loop: Implications of the Iraqi Insurgency” report.

The thrust of the Fallows piece is adopting a culturally coherent counterinsurgency strategy for the United States in Iraq. Much of it includes advice the Bush administration should have been following a year ago and seems to belatedly be adopting some of today.