Looking around America these days, if you can stand it, the sense of what it means to be a man has become a very shaky business. I was studying one particular tattooed moron, twenty-something, in the gym Saturday. He had on display a full sleeve-job of “tribal” skin décor in that curvy blade-like motif that invokes a general idea of ninja swordplay. Perhaps he really was a dangerous dude, a Navy Seal just back from slitting Taliban throats in Nangarhar. More likely, he was a fork-lift operator in the local Ace Hardware distribution center. He seemed to resent my attention — but then why had he taken so many pains to adorn himself?
Is it not interesting that so many males in America affect to be warriors? What does this tell us about the psychological dimensions of manhood in this country? If I have to guess, I’d venture that many people of the male persuasion hereabouts can’t imagine any other way of being a man — other than as a fine-tuned bringer-of-death, preferably some species of cyborg, with “techno” bells and whistles. This is obvious fodder from the many Transformer and Robocop movies, the dream of becoming a most excellent killing machine.
This ethos was on hyperwarp display in Sunday’s NFL football playoffs, football being, after all, mock warfare with mock warriors. San Francisco quarterback Colin Kapernick’s arm tattoos were hard to decipher even on a large high-def flatscreen. At first I thought they were maps of suburban Milwaukee, or perhaps the full text of Jude the Obscure but it turns out (I looked it up) they record his ongoing life “narrative,” his triumphs and distinctions, his mom’s heart transplant, and his dealings with the fugitive deity known as Jesus Christ. Between scoring drives, Colin vamped on the sidelines in a red Cholo hat, one of those ball caps featuring an exquisitely flattened brim designed to make the wearer look like a homicidal clown — which is the favored motif of aspiring criminals abroad in the land nowadays. As Lon Chaney, the master of horror, once remarked apropos of his character creation technique, “There’s nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.” The objective: to look as ridiculous as possible and yet give off a vibe of unpredictable danger and violence.
Colin was hardly the sole creature on the field adorned with ink. At times, the scrimmage looked like the recreation yard at the Washington State Penitentiary. But that brings us to another theme of contemporary American manhood having to do with the grand initiation rite of serving time in prison. There is a meme on the loose, especially among the hopeless idealists, that American jails are filled with “political prisoners.” This is just not so. Though our drug laws are certainly idiotic, cruel, and pointless, I believe sincerely that the prison system is filled with psychopathic monsters. They may be creations of our monster-making culture, in all its depravity and pernicious falsity, but they are monsters nonetheless.
But the romance of monsterdom is yet another theme in the current caboodle of American manhood. Boys are in love with monsters, and want to be them, or like them, or with them, and nowadays many succeed at that. The indulgence in all these juvenile enthusiasms presents in the absence of any better models of a way to be. The time is not distant when a lot of things are going to shake loose in this land, and when that happens, there will be monsters amongst us everywhere: tattooed clowns in baby clothes with large muscles and weapons. Really, what are the chances that such people reared on dreams of triumphal violence will operate on the basis of kindness, generosity, and consideration of any future beyond the next fifteen minutes.
Let’s face it, the reason we do the things we do, and act the way we act, is because American manhood is in full failure mode, in full retreat from what used to be known as virtue. We wouldn’t know what this is anymore if it jumped up and bit us on the lips. I’m afraid it will take very stern leadership to reform all these current trends. When it comes around, it will look like Dolly Parton meets Hitler.
I actually played a lot of Cowboys&Indians when I was a kid.
As a “cowboy” I would emulate either Davey Crockett or Daniel Boone. I even had the coon hat. When I played the Indian it was always Geronimo. But, in my daydreams I loved pretending that I was Superman … I would fantasize about kicking Eddie Billian’s ass for always bullying me.
I honestly do not know who 10 year old boys fantasize about today. And, I probably wouldn’t want to know.
This country is filled with morbidly obese tattooed freaks, wearing fleece pajamas and under armor hoodies in public, showing the twin delusions of “I don’t have to work for a living” and “despite the fact I weigh 325 lbs, I believe myself to be an athlete”.
Kunstler nails it this week. The depravity of our culture just seems to get worse every week. White males now emulate women, black thugs and gangsters, since blacks and women have taken over their jobs and their futures and they think that maybe if they imitate their entitled brethren, they may somehow wrest some kind of life from the wreckage of our country and economy. White males are just imitating the buffoons T.V. shows them to be, and they seem to love the guilt and shame deposited on them from every source in the liberal progressive media.
And males aren’t really males anymore, since most are obese and what little testosterone they do have is quickly converted to estrogen by the aromatase enzyme in their hypertrophied fat cells. And obese women have more circulating testosterone than many males by the same process.
“Looking around America these days, if you can stand it”
That’s exactly right, and I can’t stand it. I can barely stand going out in public anymore, as my eyes are assaulted by all the obese tattooed freaks I see. I can’t stand the mind-fuck commercials on T.V., I can’t stand the degrading shows, the utter lack of any redeeming qualities on display. We’re at the end of the line; the seven deadly sins revered; gluttony, sloth, greed, wrath, pride, envy, all provided via zombyfying phones and drive thru windows.
To feel good about yourself and your country, in public, you have to say to yourself “Yes, these are my people”, but all I feel is disgust and an appalling sense of evil. Darkness has taken over this country, literally and figuratively, the 21st century is indeed the century of the Dark Continent. It’s going to get much darker, and there may not be a dawn without divine intervention. The monsters and savages will continue to attack.
would you like another big ass fries?
the fugitive deity known as Jesus Christ. – from the article
and the author is calling others ‘dazed and confused’.
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt
To me this is the definition of a REAL man. The one who goes to work every day, whose face is marred by dust and sweat, to take care of his family.
He says we are full retreat from virtue and I would add we have lost our sense of SIN.SiN is lawlessness or breaking the MORAL LAW of GOD.When we break the.moral law we hurt other people and society.Most could not name the 10 commandments or the 7 deadly sins or the 7 godly virtues.He
Is right .We are losing our virtues as a nation.Just watch a little T V today and compared it to T V in the50 s or 60s.Big difference.
I never get scared or worried looking at these freaks. They’re all covering up one shortcoming or another.
KaD….good quote…alas from a Douche Bag statist .
The complete lack of any insight or retrospection by Kunstler is on full display today!!!
He wonders why American men have such a displaced sense of manhood? It is because of the relentless pussification of males that has occurred in this country at the hands of liberal idiots and like himself!!! Young boys are feminized almost from infancy to avoid conflict, play nice, avoid rough housing and Gods Forbid, ever even think about guns, hunting, knives and woods crafts.
Why do you think the Scouts have been under such relentless attack? The very last thing that the libs want is an independent thinking and acting man, respectful towards females and with a love of country. No no no! We have to leave the Scouts to the tender mercies of the gay pedophiles and the feminazis, sheeit.
Fred Reed has chronicled this abundantly, and from the perspective of a man that his lived (=been tortured) by this insanity.
But, you can try to wish the testosterone out the boy with all the magical libtard thinking in the lollipop pooping unicorn universe, but you can’t keep it down forever.
Instead of all that testosterone being channeled into behaviors that sustain and enrich what we call a civil society, like self control, marriage and fatherhood, responsible gun ownership, self reliance and sufficiency, and praise for choosing careers such as soldiering, we see it misdirected as a glorification of the thug/prison lifestyle, welfare dependency and abandonment of mother’s and their children, criminality and mindless violence.
Man versus Barbarian, gee, I wonder which one the Kunstlers and Feminazis are gonna call on when TSHTF.
bb says:
“Most could not name the 10 commandments or the 7 deadly sins or the 7 godly virtues.”
Where in the bible do you find the 7 deadly sins or the 7 godly virtues? (regarding the latter, are you are refering to paul’s “against these there is no law” list?). Yeesus said that the rest of the commandments follow from the first two commandments. No need to memorize them; god said, I will write my law in their hearts, he said that it is your thinking that convicts you.
Thought this would go perfect here…
Enjoy..
” — the fugitive deity known as Jesus Christ. – from the article ……………………. and the author is calling others ‘dazed and confused’.”
—– El Coyote
To be expected.
Cuntsler is a Joo.
I have tried to teach my children to think for themselves, to be independent, to love (because if you’re not loving, you’re hating, otherwise known as fear). I tell them that if they want something, then they must pay for it. In other words, if you want to control or denigrate someone (take more than your fair share), then you will most definitely PAY for it in the long run. If you want a slutty-looking bimbo, then you will pay for it. If you want to be dependent, then you will pay for it.
We really ALWAYS get what we want in the end. Of course, we blame the other party, but it’s really our own choices that got us to where we are. Take what you want, but pay for it. That’s why we must carefully think about what we truly want.
So far, no tattoos in our household.
Hope@Zero
“Man versus Barbarian, gee, I wonder which one the Kunstlers and Feminazis are gonna call on when TSHTF.”
A better question would be “I wonder which Men would answer when Cuntsler and the Feminazis call on them?”
This one won’t. Fuck em. They made this cluster fuck, so let them deal with the fucking barbarians. Far as I’m concerned, that just saves me ammo…
As long as I’m on the Dropkick Murphys, here’s another good one for y’all….
Oh, I am not done yet!
Kunstler is prattling on about “virtue” About fucking time, seeing as how the Lefties have had a war on virtue for the last 50 years. And now we are seeing the fruits of abandoning it!.
The destruction of American virtue has been a long term goal of the Left, of which Kunstler is a rabid part. Hence the Long March through the cultural and academic institutions of this country by the Left. And yes, that virtue is based on Judeo-Christian values and the philosophies of all those “dead old white men”.
Yes, those “dead old white men”, using JC values,created the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Amendments, magnificent documents that lead to the creation of a country of unimaginable prosperity and freedom to even entertain their goofy and destructive ideas!
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry when these tatooed freaks, born into a country with the greatest wealth and freedom in human history, curse and destroy the very county which allowed them to exist in the first place! Go try that in Putin’s Russia, or Iran.
Gosh, I guess all those boring, parochial, “extreme”, whitey, homophobic, paternalistic virtues have, well, some virtue in keeping the seams of civilization together. Cuz, now those seams are busting loose and it’s gonna be real dark times, and soon.
Alert: We are ALREADY living in the Zombie Apocalypse, brought to your courtesy of the War on Virtue by the libtard proglodytes.
JK seems to have a hard time with the body tats. Is it not a reflection of the very thing he preaches? Namely, localism and its handmaiden, tribalism?
As for the other freak pics here, to me it just represents peak oil empire froth, where these individuals have the luxury of an anonymous corporate/cultural infrastructure that actually sells stuff to them to maintain their existence. This luxury will be fleeting, and at the very least they have marked themselves for ostracism or extremely limited places to live. They may not care now….
These stupid fucks who get face/neck/eyeball tats and wear bolts in their face have a serious “Lookit MEE!” problem…
Having tats doesn’t make you a badass, either. Being a badass makes you a badass.
Idiots who think that having their bodies covered in ugly tats makes them badasses remind me of the idiots who brag about their dick size… 99.99% of the time, they got little to brag about.
On the upside, these stupid fucks with the tats and bolts will be easy to identify once TSHTF and therefore avoided and/or eliminated.
I remember an article about Boy George. He was sitting at a bus stop with an old lady, and he was all dressed up. He realized that the old lady was so much more interesting that he was. He said he dressed up to cover the fact that he was empty inside.
backwardsevolution says:
“I remember an article about Boy George. …He said he dressed up to cover the fact that he was empty inside.”
people don’t know what awaits them after a few weeks, months, years of legal pot.
Real men will have no problem dealing with the freaks when TSHTF.
Above all else be armed.
It’s ironically funny that Kunstler is complaining about things like this when it is people like him who have been pushing our country in this direction for decades.
You can hate on JHK or not. I agree with much of what he wrote and most of what he writes. American men are becoming more and more pathetic every year. It’s not a surprise, tho. The media is constantly pumping them up with a melange of the most idiotic messages. I used to read my buddy’s Maxim magazines. It was as far as I could go-GQ and the rest were already too effeminate, corny, and shallow at that early point. The thing I walked away from was half of masculinity, according to them, was buying things to fit in. The other half was using women. And the other half after that was being a metrosexual to fit in.
(BTW-don’t hate on JHK for being an old liberal who bemoans the death of the America he grew up with. These days, even Camille Paglia is sorry to see the extinction of the traditional American man. These old counter-culture 60s rebels are aging and I think some are starting to realize their Brave New World didn’t come to fruition.)
The fundamental problem, I think, is most guys today don’t have a real man to learn from. Even the less than 50% whose parents are still married can look at a man who grew up in the same rotten culture they did. My dad was born in the 30s and he had a much harder edge than most guys today. He was hard to please and even when he wasn’t around, I knew what he would have expected of me.
I’m not what I consider a tough guy, popular, mainstream and cutting edge with the coolest clothes, expensive haircut, nicest cologne, or a set of fake back stories for going to the club. You wouldn’t confuse me with one of the show-off muscle guys with the tattoos and the Idiocracy attitude. But I would consider myself a real American man.
I take care of my family.
I hold down a job.
I pay the bills.
I keep my wife and kid safe.
I feed, clothe, and change my kid.
My wife can trust me to be home every night.
I drink, but it’s never prevented me from keeping a job.
I’m not a workout guy, but I’m strong enough to do anything around the house that needs doing.
I cook dinner, do the dishes, vacuum, mow the yard, and do other house stuff when it needs doing.
Compared to those fake tough guys, I’m a total nerd, but I can keep a family fed, sheltered, and protected and that’s a hell of a lot better than most people.
Before I was married, I had a friend comment, “You’re 30, you got no debt, and you have a steady job? You’re the most eligible bachelor in town!” That’s pretty sad, if you think about it.
You know, to think about it, there must be legions of young women who are desperate for a real man who can do things real men used to do. If I go back to see that old friend, I might still be the most eligible, extra 30 pounds, grey hairs, mortgage, and all… “What? You can cook FOOD?”
Hell, today I astonished my wife with the simple act or replacing her windshield wipers. Contrast that to a guy I used to know who-I AM NOT KIDDING-had never changed a light bulb or used a screwdriver in his entire life.
We live in an incredibly simple, easy, pampered, protected world of wealth when men can grow up and never use basic hand tools or even replace a light bulb. Come the global shitstorm, we are going to see a collective die-off the likes of which we haven’t seen since the dinosaurs. When the free money machine stops, I figure a ton of people are going to just give up. What good is life without TV and the internet and new fashion and 20$ shots of designer booze at the club with plastic girls?
What’s Kim Kardashian going to do after the economy collapses? Who will care about her belly then?
What are the Jersey Shore punks going to do? What are 6pack abs going to buy you when there’s no money and no food? Will that hour of preening and blowdrying your hair get you an extra loaf in the bread line?
Will a public relations degree and all the nights drinking in NY clubs keep your furnace running?
What is going to be the point of existence for someone like Miley Cyrus? In an era where many women will only be able to sell their asses to get through the day, her particular brand won’t be worth much.
Oh, God, what’s Paris Hilton going to be doing?
In fact, could you imagine in 30 years if we finally get things fixed and put the global economic collapse behind us and you have to go to NY or DC or wherever the center of life is, hail a taxi, and you’re sitting there in the dingy, patched seats as the driver puts the car/tuk-tuk/horses, dogsled, etc into traffic and you realize the driver is Paris Hilton? What would *THAT* be like? Actually, that reminds me of Goodbye, Lenin (watch it if you haven’t) where the main character realizes his taxi driver is a former East German astronaut who refuses to admit he was a former hero of the DDR.
if paris is bored she could do me. She’s still got a few good miles on her.
Billy, thanks for the links. I saw DKM in their first concert in AK last summer. I’ll stand up, although I have some ink myself (no face or neck tats, tho).
Doosh-that is an appropriate tag. Suit yourself-as for me, not with a rented dick.
It has to be like tossing a hotdog down the Lincoln Tunnel at this point…
Gilbert, are you advertising?
AKAnon
I got no problem with ink. I thought of getting a tat once. You know, boring military stuff- airborne wings, that kind of thing…
It’s the “tribal” dipshits that irritate me. Unless you’re chucking spears on a Pacific Island somewhere, it’s kind of….. dooshy?… on a whitebread kid from the burbs who stocks shelves at Walmart…
And tramp stamps on females. Never ceases to amaze me. The body of a beautiful woman is one of the most stunning, exquisite things on the face of the earth. You cannot “improve” on it, ESPECIALLY by putting some tribe thing above your ass… might as well have hourly rates printed there for the guys who service you.
Saw one of those “dog rescue” shows recently. Gorgeous girl, or at least she could have been. Maybe what? 22? Dumb bitch had purple or green hair, face tats, bolts in her face, all sorts of tribal shit on her arms and neck. Even had tats on her tit, but it was sort of covered up… WHY? I mean, it just makes her look like a whore or a fucking barbarian… one of those sideshow freaks hawked by carnies back in the 1930’s…
No need to be unkind to these people when they show up at your doorstep.
Hand them a jar of peanut butter anf give them directions to the nearest FEMA camp.