I’m sure all of you are aware of many of the world’s current problems. Lately, you’ve been reading in The Oracle how crappy education is and who is to blame. You’ve been told about how bad the economy is and why certain people are to blame. Homosexuals are being oppressed in their quest to be married and play house as if they were “just like heterosexuals” and, of course, someone other than them is to blame. You’ve been told that the earth is dying a horrific anti-environment and non-eco friendly death, and we’re all to blame.
So while we’re playing the “name the problem and place the blame game,” I thought I’d just go nuts this week. Let’s go over the world’s problems.
I’ll start with something simple like divorce. The divorce rates in America, Canada, Australia, the UK, and even Japan (27%) are outrageous. The United States currently has 12.9 million single parents, and 10.4 million of them are women. Where’d all the men go? Canada is asking the same thing. In Canada, 50% of kids from divorced families will never see their father again. Then there’s the male incarceration numbers…holy schnikes. I don’t have room in this column for all these statistics in front of me.
Let me break it down quick: the environment is in bad shape. The national debt is more than $11 trillion. The whole world’s economy is pretty much as bad as ours-unless your name is China. There are men raping women all over the world. Men don’t seem to know whether they’re supposed have to sex with one woman, two women or if they should be having sex with women at all.
Some men are having sex with animals, little children, other men, and even inanimate objects. People are marrying inanimate objects. People are marrying multiple people at once. Men are marrying other men and women are marrying their “butch” or their “fem.”
People are scamming other people. CEOs are giving themselves a ton of cash. People are doing drugs all over the world, and a huge number of men are crawling into a bottle of Jack Daniels or Jim Beam every night after work because they can’t figure out what’s missing in their life. Pre-marital and extra marital sex is business as usual for some people. Men are killing other men. Men are selling women into sex slavery. Pornography is a billion dollar a year industry.
Dads are leaving home and never coming back. Men are beating their wives and children. Father’s are gambling their savings and family’s future away. Men are treating their wives like roommates and short order cooks. Men are letting pornography tear their marriages apart.
Sons are growing up and becoming just like the fathers they had-or didn’t have at all. The sons grow up and beat their wives, or don’t touch them at all because; they’re too busy with the mistress or the porn web site they have in joint account with their son. If they do talk to their son, its “pass the pepper” at the dinner table, and that’s all. Or worse, they yell obscene demeaning things at them, and that’s it. Then that son of the son grows up-it’s a vicious cycle.
You see we don’t have an economy problem or an environment problem or a whatever else problem, we have a sin problem. We have a human nature problem. Human beings are not inherently good. If you think otherwise, I respectfully suggest that you’re wrong. If you think this world is going great and that people are naturally altruistic and good beings then I don’t think you’re paying attention.
Men, more so than women ,seem to be shrinking away from the proverbial plate that they should be stepping up to. It’s not just that men aren’t hitting home runs after stepping to the plate, it’s that they’re not even showing up to the ball park at all.
Baseball analogies aside, I think our culture, and even the world, has a serious problem with masculinity and manhood. We’ve got it all wrong-we’re confused. Men are confused. Look at all of those things I just mentioned. How many of those things are a natural result of men being depraved?
I’m not saying women aren’t responsible for any of the world’s problems, I just want to foucs on problems in masculinity because I am a man.
Some men don’t have the slightest clue what authentic masculinity is. Their perversion of masculinity can also have grave and detrimental consequences that are similar to the results in an absence of authentic manhood.
Listen, we could find ourselves out of debt tomorrow (not likely). We could wake up tomorrow and find that the planet is perfectly healthy and fully restored to a great green order. We could wake up to free education, free healthcare, and jobs for every American, but at the end of the day we would just be covering up the symptoms of a disease-not curing the disease itself.
So.every week I tell you what I think, but this time men (sorry ladies) I want to know what you think. In our culture today there seems to be a wide variety of beliefs as to what it means to be a man. This leads me to ask basics questions. Please answer seriously, and send your responses to oraclemanhoodsurvey@gmail.com.
*What does “manhood” look like? What does it mean to be a “real” man? What does it mean to be a manly man or a man’s man?
*What are some of the key attributes or characteristics of a “real” man?
*What does true manhood look like in the home and at work? What is the proper role of a man in the home, at work and in the community?
*When does a boy crossover and become a man? Is there a particular age or set of events that mark him as a man?
*What events and/or people have shaped your thinking on this subject? If there is a particular person or two that have shaped your thinking, what was it about them that left an impression on you?
*Are there any essays, books or other literature you’ve read that give you insight or clarity?
Email answers to:
oraclemanhoodsurvey@gmail.com
