The rise of the nice guy

The Nice Guy is a phenomenon that started in the late 20th century.  It was well intentioned -
women desired softer men.  This man would be more caring. He would let women have their due and not be an overbearing macho meathead.  He would be an ally to feminism.  He wouldn't be angry.  He'd be emotional.  He wouldn't be violent.  He'd be a man with a very strong connection to his feminine side. 

Women said they wanted this. And society shifted (particularly in progressive circles) to make this kind of man.  Note: I'm careful to designate that this is generally more a progressive issue than conservative because anecdotally, I see less of this Nice Guy issue in conservative areas.  Some of the changes to raising boys were conscious.  Some were not.  Some changes were the natural result of the rise of the male factory worker and women taking a much larger role for the rearing of men.  Prior to World War II, many boys worked along side their fathers and learned how to be men from their fathers.  In the latter half of the 20th century, many boys learned how to become men from their mothers.

The idea of the Nice Guy is perpetuated in society today.  Some of the big contributors are:

• The "everyone gets a trophy" mentality - winning and competition are de-emphasized and frowned upon
• The over-protection of children's physical well being - they don't get to solve their own problems
• The demonization of the male sex drive - men are pigs, all boys care about is sex
• Movies and media that tell us putting women on a pedestal is proper courting
• The idea that women are more relationship capable than men and men should defer to women's more refined relationship sense
• Women's own words - "I may not like you, but some day - you'll find the right girl."

What ends up happening is that we get a boy or a man with no power.  Someone else (often women) have the power, and the boy/man sees his role to success as being nice.  But what is nice?  For many men, this means people pleasing.  It means being deferential.  It means trying to not make mistakes. 

And the irony of all of it is that women have never been unhappier with the selection of men available.  Women *say* they want softer, more feminine men.  But they don't.  Women want stronger, more masculine men.  And it's not close.  In some cases, nice guys are men - but often they're adult boys.  They are missing male backbone that says "this is who I am, take it or leave it." Instead, the Nice Guy says "I'll be whatever you want me to be."  I view Nice Guys as missing their aggression.  Aggression is what men leverage for their masculine behavior.

Nice Guys have two paths as they grow.  Option 1 - they live as Nice Guys forever.  They never understand that they are living someone else's truth - always trying to please other people and fit into someone else's mold for behavior.  Option 2 - they learn how they've been robbed of their power and they work to become a fully integrated man.  The road is long and hard and involves unlearning a lifetime of bad programming. 

Unfortunately, society at large is still creating more Nice Guys.  While men and masculinity continue to be demonized, society will persist in altering the definition of men to create softer and "nicer" men. 

Men want a load to bear

David Deida, in Way of the Superior Man, says the priority of the masculine is its mission and the priority of the feminine is the flow of love.  In this case, I'm going to specifically say that I'm referencing the approximately 80% of men that have a masculine essence (estimate from the aforementioned book in chapter 23).  I don't have any idea how scientific that number is - I take the number as much more true than not true in that most men have a masculine core.  For the purpose of this post, I'm going to use the "men" to reference the 80% of men with masculine cores. 

For these men, they find meaning in their work.  They find meaning in what they do.  Family is not what drives them.  And the difficult thing in progressive society is that we are taught that being a kind, gentle father (or member of society) is what will bring us joy.  This is not true.  Men strive.  Men hunt.

Men want a load to bear.  The load comes in the form of responsibilities.  Striving towards a goal means that a man must take on the characteristics of his inner-hero that will bear the weight of the world on his shoulders.  To bear this load, a man learns keep his ego in check, determine his own self worth, focus, and lead.  There's a power that comes from the inner character that is built when men develop their inner-hero.  The inner-hero is a fighter; he is a warrior.  Men find their meaning in the struggle.

When men are taught feminine goal setting of comfort, love, and family - they don't develop their character and priorities in ways that align with their core.  There's nothing wrong with being a softer man if the man his truly happy.  But men aren't happy.  Boys are unmotivated.  Men are unsure of their place in the world.  Women increasingly see men as boys who navigate life in an insecure way.

The answer is a return to the roots of masculinity taught from man to man.  In a way that I can't explain, the exact same concepts taught by a woman will not land the same way on a man.  I don't know if that's misogyny, but it's a fact.  The concepts are about ownership over one's self, drive, determination, stoicism, self-reliance, and many other masculine traits.  Men are built to bear a load.  If we teach boys and men how to bear a load, they become the men that nature wanted us to be.  It's the ability to shoulder that burden with pride, humility, and strength that makes a man.

Men are hunters

Men are metaphorical hunters.  There's something deep inside men that causes us to seek things out and go after them.  That "thing" we're after varies wildly from man to man, but it can come in the form of nearly anything - fame, fortune, success, power, women, adventure, or nearly anything.  It's a male reflex deep inside our DNA that points us toward a goal and gives us a fire inside to go after that goal with aggression, relentlessness, and passion.

The fire that fuels a man's hunt has a dark side.  When the fire is not properly harnessed or not used ethically, the fire can be detrimental to individuals and to society.  When viewing the world as a zero sum game and with no semblance of empathy, masculine fire can bring about the worst parts of humanity: rape, theft, war, violence, genocide.  This untempered fire is really hyper-masculinity.  We have learned that masculine aggression without the corresponding feminine compassion is unhealthy

Noting that masculine fire has this potential for darkness (sometimes called toxic masculinity), progressive society began teaching a more a softer, more feminine style of behavior and thinking to boys.  The idea was that men were not happy with their hyper-masculine box and society would be better with men that were more kind.  The idea made sense.  But the idea had a flaw.  The masculine is not docile.  The fire is a leverage point in a man's behavior that he uses to find his place in the world.  The fire should be tempered, but it should not be extinguished.

When a boy or man is taught that kindness/love/empathy should make him happy, he gets confused.  Like a border collie that has a deep instinct to herd sheep . . . the border collie will be a comfort dog if that is what is required of him.  But the border collie won't be living his gift.  He won't be embodying the instinctual drive deeply ingrained in his being that not only matches his soul, but makes him genuinely happy.  Much like a border collie, men have a gift.  That gift is the hunt.  The hunt is driven by the fire.  By not teaching boys and men to harness their fire and hunt properly, men are not able to give their gift to the world.

Missing male rites of passage

One of the things that we lost in the transition to modern progressive, urban culture was the male rite of passage.  My progressive mind initially dismissed these kinds of ceremonies.  I thought they were relics of a more primitive time that no longer had a place in modern life.  I don't know what a modern form of this would look like, but I think we're missing something by not having it.

The male rite of passage was a process by which tribe elders/men symbolically transitioned boys to men.  The specifics of the ceremony aren't important as they varied across cultures, but the common issue is that boys went through an excruciating trial and came out as men on the other side of the trial.  Very often, this process destroys the male's ego.

Interestingly, we replicated this behavior in some ways in modern society.  The military does this in boot camp.  Fraternities and their hazing processes do this..  Sports teams have an element of this (particularly football). In the modern examples, the process is similar in some ways to the old rites - break the boy down and rebuild him as a man.

In the modern world, we don't have that obvious demarcation point where a boy becomes a man.  The primary characteristic of a man is taking ownership over his life.  He acknowledges the control he has to make his life what he wants it to be.  He doesn't blame shift.  He doesn't defer.  He isn't lazy.  Men are not ego driven.  It's not a coincidence that we have more adult boys than we have ever had in the history of this planet.  What defines an adult boy?  He lives with his parents when he's 30.  He plays video games all day instead of engaging with life.  He meanders in his work life because no one has given him a life path. 

I believe the larger problem is comfort.  We got it in our minds that suffering is no longer a necessary part of life.  Wouldn't life be great if we could remove pain?  The answer is a resounding no.  We use discomfort as a sign for change.  If everything is good or great, where is the impetus for transformation into something better? 

A lion raised in a zoo cannot go back into the wild because it never learned to hunt on its own.  A lion in the wild went through hell trying and failing to catch prey, but it got better each time and built a skill set through adaptation where the lion became something different, something better.  It went from a cub dependent on its mother to a self sufficient animal that a lion raised in a zoo can never be. 

Men need discomfort and forced adaptation just like lions.  Becoming a man isn't a matter of chronology.  It's a series of learned and adapted behaviors that he either learns on his own or his tribe puts him through.  Maybe it's enough to absorb these traits from one's father. Maybe it's enough to learn these things on one's own.  But for a lot of boys and men, they are missing this transition.  Like lions, men need to learn how to hunt.  Men need to learn how to be the place where the buck stops.  When the chips are down, men don't look to others to solve their problems, men bear the load and go to work.  For millennia, men learned this in rites of passage.

What men and boys are missing in 2018

The gradual de-masculinization of the progressive male had good intention.  The criticisms of how men were being raised were varied and valid:
1) Men aren't allowed to show emotion
2) Men are not allowed to show weakness
3) Men are sex driven pigs
4) Men demean and marginalize women
5) Men are violent
6) Men are selfish narcissists

With the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism, society went about remaking boys and men into a newer, softer version.  The goal was laudable.  And in progressive areas, tremendous strides have been made to create these nicer men.  But like with all changes, there's the potential for an over-correction.  In this case, I'm writing about boys and men that are too nice.  When taught to suppress their aggression, they are left searching for meaning.  Boys and men are looking for ways to channel this aggression.  Sports, career, hobbies - it doesn't matter.  Male biology is looking to *do* something.  Men want something to put our heart and soul into and attack with relentless abandon. 

Without aggression and with the progressive reinforced message of being kind through childhood, several new problems emerged.  As documented by Dr. Warren Farrell in The Boy Crisis, boys are falling behind.  They are less motivated.  They are more likely to be addicted to drugs, porn, and video games.  The short reason why: the lack of masculine direction. 

Another problem - the nice guy.  A nice guy is this new softer male who avoids conflict, people pleases, and generally has trouble with women (a sweet irony because the nice guy tries to be exactly what women says they want - a kind person who puts women on a pedestal).  In general, the nice guy is uncomfortable expressing masculine traits, and he attempts relate with a more feminine energy.  These men don't always realize it, but they are miserable.  Dr. Robert Glover wrote about this brilliantly in No More Mr. Nice Guy.

What's sad is what Dr. Farrell and Dr. Glover write about is that society is espousing a broken paradigm for raising boys.  More and more boys and men are being created via this broken paradigm everyday.  I'm not advocating for a return to the overly macho male patterns of past, but a middle road.  Men need their aggression harnessed and directed.  This will make boys and men happier and more fulfilled.

Men don't let other people determine their self worth

A fully developed man doesn't let other people determine his self worth.

This isn't to say that a man isn't aware of what other people think and adjusts to what they think, but he has an inner strength of character that that does not let other people's opinions affect his opinion of himself.  This idea is born from the dominance hierarchy and the survival instinct men have to be an alpha male.  The independence of not having one's self esteem or actions guided by the opinions of others is an essential skill for navigating the group dynamics in dominance hierarchy ascension.  When properly expressed, not caring what other people think is manifested as confidence, decisiveness, and perseverance.  "I understand you think XYZ, but I think ABC - so I'm going to follow my gut and do ABC."  Alpha males are leaders.

In order to ascend a dominance hierarchy, a man must push toward his goals without fear of upsetting others.  By letting social dynamics affect a person's actions, he is no longer on the optimal path towards rising in the dominance hierarchy.  This same confidence that a man uses to climb the dominance hierarchy also keeps him there.

Examples:

• A man cannot listen to doubters when starting a business.  An inner strength of character pushes the man towards his goals without letting skeptics adjust his vision.  
• A man approaches a person he is attracted without fear of social consequences (friends or society telling him that the person is out of his league or a chance of failure should preclude the approach).  The confidence in a man's own internal goal compass supersedes the opinions of others.
• A man speaks his mind in regard to how he feels.  Group dynamics don't dissuade a man from speaking his truth.  His personal integrity is more important than being liked.  

Not letting others' opinions of a man's worth is not a universal male trait, but it highly correlates with how evolution intended for men to behave.  Men can be deeply concerned with what other people think.  And women can be completely unconcerned with what others think.  But men's biology (specifically - the dominance hierarchy) stretching back millions of years fits us a certain way.

I fully believe everything I wrote above.  Not only does evolutionary psychology back it up, but as a man, I can feel, in a way that I can't easily express, that these feelings are tightly interwoven with my gender.  But everything above can also apply to women.  So why differentiate and say these are male characteristics?  I struggle with this myself. 

I argue that the idea of not letting one's self worth be affected by others is the masculine.  Noting that men and women both contain masculine and feminine energy - with men likely to hold more masculine energy and women more likely to hold feminine energy, it makes sense that my masculine core would align more with this idea.  Feminine energy, a more communal energy, is more involved with the group dynamic and making sure the collective is served.  In this way, a person with a feminine core would be more likely to have his or her self worth affected by other people's opinions.  I don't feel called to answer how this works with women - how biology, evolution, and personality characteristics defined the natural instinct for how women interact with others and how they overcome it to value their self worth.  My priority is men.  I speak confidently that a developed man with a masculine core does not let others determine his self worth.

The topics I covered in this post are characteristics we should be instilling in our boys, and we do less and less of that.  The character that comes from this foundational perspective becomes confidence, backbone, strength, will, drive, power - biological instincts a million years in the making.

A Man's relationship to his aggression

The messages I got as a child were that my aggression was something I should suppress.  No one ever said to me "suppress your aggression," but the subtle message I was given was I should not become this macho, aggressive male that society told me was unwelcome.  None of the messages were overt, but they were constant.  And it was less of "be like this," but more of "don't be like that."  I, and many others, probably internalized this in some way of being an ally.  In avoiding "macho-ness," I was avoiding conforming to a male image that made women feel uncomfortable.  Women and girls pushed this message also.  Ask most women what kind of guy they want and they'll say nice, funny, treats women well, someone who listens.  Confident makes the list sometimes, and sometimes it does not.  Nice always makes it on the list in my experience. 

What does "nice" mean?  To me, nice meant someone who got along with others.  To get along with others, I should be accommodating to them.  To be accommodating to them, I should be deferential.  I should be cautious of upsetting other people.  These characteristics are generally feminine characteristics.  These are not masculine or alpha male characteristics.  Masculine presence (which can be held by men or women) is the rock in the storm.  It is unswayed by other people's opinions.  It says "this is how I feel, and I feel this way irrespective of how you feel."  It is having the courage of your convictions. 

The question then becomes - why can't a man hold both ways of being?  Can he hold the feminine energy of being nice/deferential *and* the masculine energy of having the courage of one's convictions?  For most men, the answer is no.

A man's aggression is an essential part of who he is.  Taking away his aggression is like de-clawing a cat.  It removes his weapons.  An essential part of being a man is setting boundaries (physical and emotional) - drawing a line in the sand.  That line in the sand is meaningless unless it's enforced.  The enforcement comes from perceived repercussions from crossing that line.  If a man is unwilling or unable to enforce his boundaries, he has no boundaries.  A man's ability to be that rock in the storm, to be an independent masculine force with the courage of his convictions depends on his ability to harness his aggression and power to say, in effect, "this is where I start - and this is where you end."  The power of that independence is born from the boundaries that are set by a man's aggression. 

Aggression can be trained out of a man.  And there are certain types of aggression that *are* unwelcome - violence, misogyny, suppression of those considered weak.  However, well harnessed aggression in a man is a part of our legacy and is crucial to the power that we bring.