Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
This morning I posted what I meant to be a humorous piece on officious do-gooders in the culture telling boys they can’t have toy guns. The sad part is that this phenomenon is only a small aspect of the Unmanning of America that is one of the central campaigns of the Progressive Left. This campaign is supported by highly dubious psychology that poses as the latest “research” in mental health. Case in point: today HealthDay released an article with the ominous title “For Men, ‘Culture of Honor’ Can Be Deadly.” The title alone speaks volumes, but let’s dive down into the text.
Psychologists blame risk-taking that frequently leads to violent deaths on the culture of honor. That culture is more manifest in the Southern and Western parts of the country. According to the psychologists interviewed, the culture of honor is historical (i.e. not the result of nature) and comes principally from Ulster Scots who were herders. The herders were forced to combat invaders with swift retribution. Here are the two telling quotations from the various psychologists interviewed. “In modern times, ‘if you stand the risk of losing your livelihood easily and the state is not around to protect you, you are going to develop this kind of culture of honor.’” And, “Simply becoming aware of the phenomenon might help reduce the behavior, Brown noted. Even though it can become ‘part of your programming,’ he said, ‘we have a will, we have a choice.’”
Here are several of the wrong things about this piece, although I am sure ricochet readers will come up with even more. First, the psychologists reject nature out of hand as a cause of behavior. Men don’t engage in risky behavior; men from Ulster do. Second, these folks are pretty ignorant of history. What is the society in the past in which men did not engage in risky behavior or want to protect their honor? Urban Renaissance Italy is said to have invented plastic surgery because so many young men got into duels (they used swords in those days—as in the Shakespeare plays). Third, if the real purpose of the article is to cut down on young men doing stupid things and often killing themselves or others (drunk driving, bar fights, street gangs), by all means we’re for it. But neither risk-taking nor honor is the enemy. In fact, a large part of Western philosophy, politics, and moral culture has been the effort to teach men how to take risk prudently and to achieve true honor (as in “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred”) rather than the cheap and false honor of the adolescent or the madding crowd.
But we know that this is not what the psychologists are after. A careful parsing of the sentences shows us that they brand risk-taking and honor as wholly optional courses of action for men that are best done away with in our modern society. And why do we know this? What is the one thing they do not bring up about the “honor states”? That is precisely where we are recruiting the better portion of our military. The South and West are both over-represented in the U. S. Armed Forces. HealthDay has nothing to say about other manifestations of honor and does not even make the connection. If the supposed caretakers of our mental health conveniently forget that honor is still necessary in the modern world, then they can prescribe how to make other “choices.”
Why is a flimsy report like this important—that appears one day on the MSN search page and is gone the next? Such so-called research makes its way into the schools and families (or what is left of them) and even the churches and boardrooms of the nation and gradually erodes the individual’s honor, enterprise, spirit of adventure, and appetite for risk. When Tocqueville came to America, he was impressed by the astonishing number of bankruptcies. It was a healthy sign, he thought. The bankrupt of today is the company builder of tomorrow.
To put it in another perspective, when shall we see the headline reading, “The Culture of Honor Both Builds and Protects the Nation”?
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Comments:
May '11
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
The Rage of Achilles was a result of his feeling his honor was insulted.
I'm guessing this report was written by women and girly men.
Jun '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
From Dennis Prager:
What does a man most want?
Answer: He most wants to be admired by the woman he loves.
What does a woman most want?
Answer: She most wants to be loved by a man she admires.
Oct '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
Forced risk aversion behaviour eliminates choices that otherwise strengthens will and builds character. Simply eliminates the core values of individuality and success.
Jun '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
I did so many stupid things when I was a kid, any sane person would have thought me suicidal. Some nights I'd wake up in a cold sweat, and I do mean cold sweat literally, because I'd have nightmares as a result of the driving I had done that day. Do I recommend this sort of life? No! Absolutely not! Do I think myself cool, or whatever the appropriate term is today? No! Do I understand why I did these things? No.
Being a life long car aficionado one thing I've noticed since those wild days is the seeming disproportionate number of young men in wheelchairs that attend car shows. Surely, they can all be Ulster Scots. My ancestry is Polish. So you know I'm not.
Edited on August 16, 2011 at 2:37amDec '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
Malcolm Gladwell devotes a chapter in "Outliers" to this phenomenon (where you're from dictates how you respond to affronts).
The problem is that the word "honor" is used as shorthand for "perceived effect of insults on status." The "culture of honor" that requires even minor affronts to be met with swift and overwhelming retribution has little to do with "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
It's not surprising that men from the South and West, where the legacy of the "culture of honor" persists, would be more likely to volunteer to defend America, and why they would exhibit tremendous courage and loyalty to their comrades. The great thing is that the US military channels these qualities into military valor -- and honor.
Jun '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
I wrote Boys and Girls and Play about a month ago.
Dec '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
For a time, I lived on an island, a National Wildlife Refuge, where I studied animal behavior earnestly. I think it is a very pure discipline.
Other people would occasionally visit to study other things. My favorites were female psychology students with whom, I admit, I may have engaged in risky behavior.
People that study humans purposely ignore animal behavior, as it may be inconvenient. You should never bring this up to those people, if they are attractive to you, as it will drastically limit your opportunities to engage in risky behavior.
That axiom serves me well, even today, with MsRun, as she does not like the behavior of our boys, but is perfectly accepting of the behavior of our livestock.
I may look dumb, but MsRun thinks I am cute.
Feb '11
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
There's a book called "For Honour Alone" about the cadets of the French cavalry school at Saumur who, at the direction of their commander, held off German forces for several days in 1940 **after** it was clear that France had lost the war. Of course, quite a few of them were killed, along with quite a few Germans.
On one level, one could argue that this action was a useless waste of life--it could not, at that stage, have affected the outcome of the war. At another level, one could argue that if everyone in the French Army and government (and their British counterparts) had had similar notions of honor, it' s likely that the defeat of 1940, and all of its dreadful consequences, never would have happened.
Jun '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
Honor culture is all around us. In Germany and Russia (I believe), it was a mark of manliness to have a few facial scars from near misses during swordplay and actual duels.
I'd rather have a guy like that defending the country than George Costanza.
Mar '11
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
I had a friend, about 15 years my senior, who used to say that "they" had made homosexuality legal and protected but that he hoped to be dead before "they" made it compulsory. I used to smile at this joke every time he said it and I thought of "they" as The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy to Make Homosexuality Compulsory. I theorized the rationale behind the conspiracy must be that the elite need to be able to hold the plebs in contempt in order to do what they do to them. What could be better than a population of furtive hedonists.
Getting away from my friend's joke, these psychologists who denigrate the "culture of honor" are simply providing the elite with another excuse for treating the rest of the population with contempt.
This theorizing about the "culture of honor" is more proof, as if there was not already a mountain of it, that psychology is not a science. It is a racket which enables its practitioners to exert influence they have not earned and do not deserve. They overawe the gulible with elaborate jargon and a parody of scientific method.
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
Terrence, I saw all of this happening as my own boys were growing up, so I joined the NRA, bought some firearms (and a safe) and learned to use them. Then I taught my sons to shoot. Now we head out to the range every month or so when the weather's nice to obliterate some clay pigeons or punch precision holes in paper targets. And the guys learn about safety, discipline, our God-given rights and, yes, things that go boom.
And the folks at the range couldn't be more approving.
Sep '10
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
Intelligent people don't take this sort of "study" seriously, but I suspect many faculty in Education departments do, and then tell their Ed major students about them. These students become primary school teachers, and the result is the awful "zero-tolerance" tripe that criminalizes boys' natural behavior.
Mar '11
Re: Bad Psychology and the Unmanning of America
"To put it in another perspective, when shall we see the headline reading, “The Culture of Honor Both Builds and Protects the Nation”?
The grim answer is: we shan't.
Reconstructing honor and a proper sense of manliness is just one part of the remoralization of society that broadly needs to be undertaken at the informal level of habits and mores. I find contempt to be a particularly useful weapon in this connection.