Man of the Year

It’s a man’s, man’s world—or so Josh Hawley would have you believe. On today’s Ruminant, ...

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It’s a man’s, man’s world—or so Josh Hawley would have you believe. On today’s Ruminant, Jonah takes a deep dive into the new right’s obsession with masculinity and what it really means to be manly. He also assesses the pros and cons of codifying gay marriage into law, rants about Joe Manchin’s deal with Chuck Schumer, and gives some further thoughts on whether it’s right to launch criminal prosecution against a former president. It’s a radioactive episode.

Show Notes:

– Wednesday’s “news”letter

– The Remnant with Charles C.W. Cooke

– Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin make a deal

– Josh Hawley’s book announcement

– Tom Klingenstein: “Trump is a manly man”

– Kevin Williamson: “The Virile Style”

– Madeline Kearns: “Marital Clash”

– The Editors on Congress’ gay marriage bill

– Andrew Sullivan’s case for gay marriage

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I’m a broken record on this subject but it still irritates me so I’ll probably have to keep saying it. The thing I had the most visceral WTF gut reaction to about the whole Trump phenomenon was how anyone could look at that guy and see an “alpha” man. He talked like a middle schooler, whined like a toddler, and he lied to keep himself out of physical danger (ie Vietnam). He was lazy, weak, cowardly, obese, desperately insecure, and he wasn’t even a good businessman (part of the con was the idea that he was).

    I can’t respect Josh Hawley as a man either. If the MAGA crowd thinks it’s manly to boast and brag about your manliness, I’m pretty sure I’ve done more that required a fair amount of physical danger/risk/difficulty/rigor than Hawley and Trump and Tucker combined. But I don’t believe boasting and bragging makes someone manly - I think it makes them insecure and insecurity isn’t manly. So I won’t sit here and play the “who has the bigger d**k” game because that game got old all the way back in high school.

    Jonah hit on precisely the point that bothers me the most. By leaning into the dumbest caricatures and worst stereotypes of manliness, these MAGA clowns are making the left’s argument for them. As if their response to the phrase “toxic masculinity,” is “you ain’t seen toxicity yet!”

    By most metrics, I’m a traditionally masculine guy. When the Hawley’s of this world give manliness a bad name, guys like me get tarred by association. As if the only options available to males were either to renounce their masculinity or go full Hawley. But they’re not. Everything Trump does is all kayfabe. It’s talk and no action, show and no reality. There is such a thing as real manliness and it doesn’t look like either Trump or the left’s stereotype.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Marvel2014.ab

    Jonah, I respect and admire you immensely, and I believe you are one of the most important voices in American politics right now. Even in this episode, I found your explanation of what manliness is and is not perhaps the best discussion of the subject I’ve ever heard. But I must say, I have never disagreed with you more strongly than on your defense of same-sex marriage.

    Obviously, much of the disagreement comes from the fact that I am a Christian and you are not. If God has defined marriage as between one man and one woman, which I believe he has, then all these arguments about same-sex marriage promoting bourgeois values, or the impracticality of reversing it after 8 years, or opposing it just being political poison, are simply irrelevant.

    I do, however, want to respond more in depth to your comments about whether same-sex marriage has made social conservatism more libertine. You argue that while social conservatism has become more libertine, it’s not because of same-sex marriage, it’s because of Donald Trump.

    But it seems obvious to me that the two are linked. A Republican Party that embraces Donald Trump is going to have a hard time maintaining opposition to same-sex marriage, and a Republican Party that embraces same-sex marriage is giving up it’s traditional “antibodies” that would naturally make it harder to embrace Donald Trump.

    This is especially the case with the many Republicans who had opposed same-sex marriage, but abandoned their scruples regarding it because the political reality necessitated it. Once they did that, it became almost inevitable that they would abandon their scruples regarding Trump as well once it became politically necessary.

    And, of course, a Republican Party that embraces same-sex marriage, especially if it does so while the left becomes increasingly moralistic, is naturally going to attract social libertines, and a party made up of social libertines is naturally going to have a lot less of a problem with someone like Trump. I don’t think anyone can seriously argue that we would have seen the rise of the “Barstool Conservatives” if the GOP was known as the party against same-sex marriage.

    Obviously, there are plenty of people who support same-sex marriage and oppose Donald Trump. And there are also people who oppose same-sex marriage and love Donald Trump. But my point is that someone who opposes same-sex marriage and yet fully embraces Donald Trump is being inconsistent, while someone who supports same-sex marriage and fully embraces Donald Trump may well be acting completely consistently within their ideological framework.

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  3. Very Old Grumpy Guy

    There are many, very thoughtful, very erudite comments in this thread on the debate surrounding gay marriage. While I think it is fantastic that I get to read all the thoughts of these intelligent, thoughtful, respectful people, I use Occam's razor to come to a more simple conclusion. If two consenting adults want to call their relationship a marriage, and it does not affect me in any way, why is this even debated? Is someone being exploited? Is someone being injured? I get that the thought of this relationship may elicit disgust, but, for me, so does ignorance and lack of curiosity about the wider world we get to live in for a limited time. Humans have free will. If not constrained, they will make both fantastic and horrendous choices. As we are learning organisms, we will likely be informed by observing - directly- not just from mythical stories on the inter web - other humans' behavior. Isn't that enough? Do we really need the government or religion or social pressure or whatever, imposing the correct decision upon us? Sounds very CCP to me.

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    1. Pohl

      This isn’t Ockham’s razor. It’s just reductivism. “We will likely be informed by observing . . . other humans' behavior.” Just so. The law is a teacher, and when it teaches so poorly about the fundamental unit of society, it brings a different society into being.
      Truth should be the measure of things, not a shrug about who’s it hurt, what’s the big deal? The big deal is peddling a false idea of marriage, of the sexes, and, ultimately, of man and his purposes. But, nothing to see here, I guess.

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      1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

        With respect, I think we have different life experiences which seems like it leads to fundamentally different world views. Having spent some formative years in the bottom decile of economic attainment, I have concluded that 1) Marriage is not suitable for 100% of humans. If I had to guess, maybe as many as 10 to 15% of people are not and will likely never be emotionally mature enough to participate in a constructive marriage. 2) Not 100% of people who are suitable for marriage are suitable to be be parents. Net/net, my unscientific guess is that 25% of people should never have children. (To be clear, I am not advocating any action taken to restrict anyone from being a parent.) I do not think that the stability of society is at risk if these 25% never have children. In fact, I think the total measure of global misery is probably lower and society more stable if they do not. I assert that heterosexual marriage is the NOT the only glue holding society together. I would be happy to hear other opinions. That is the only way I can learn.

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        1. Pohl

          I have no problem with your math other than to add that people should not marry if they feel unfit to raise children. I also haven’t said marriage is the only glue in society. There is more to society than families.
          I have attempted to show across many comments why marriage only has value to the state as an institution because it is about babies and babies’ ideal upbringing. Other arrangements that exist or may exist are irrelevant to this. Marriage is not some laurel wreath. It has a very specific meaning. There is no reason to distort it to accommodate one group, and then another, and another.
          It’s not about discrimination. It’s about honoring the natural purposes of things. It’s about valuing marriage for its essential role in society. It’s definitely not a devaluation of other relationships that are just as critical for overall human flourishing.

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          1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

            I respectfully disagree. The US is one of the few governing systems designed with an individual liberty centric bias. If one accepts this assertion there is no special value assigned to babies, except to the extent that having babies is an expression of individual liberty. Before I make other points I want to make sure I understand the thrust of the comment "babies ideal upbringing". Can you please expand on what you mean by that?

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  4. Daveafellows

    With regards to gay marriage, it should be noted that homosexuality has existed as part of the human condition much longer Christianity.

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  5. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    All you have to do is watch the Back to the Future trilogy to see how far our conception have manhood has fallen. Bob Gale has said that he specifically thought of Trump when creating the Biff character. Maybe he’s patting himself on the back a bit but the parallels are quite obvious. Biff is the villain, certainly not the manly hero.

    And I thought Jonah’s point about how the right has embraced the bogus left wing straw man of manly virtue was quite good. Didn’t Bill Bennett write a book about virtue? He pretty much personifies that about face. Stoic manliness in the mold of Washington or Marcus Aurelius bears no resemblance to Donald Trump. I just keep hearing Robert the Bruce:

    “I don’t want anything from you. You’re not a man!”

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  6. Niku

    Call me silly, but contrary to your opinion I think the US President (former) should be held to at least as high a standard as we do an Iranian/Persian rug merchant/heroin smuggler. Pulling a "fast one" on McConnell feels like destiny. I also think you are missing how much credit to give Biden for accomplishing a lot without getting any credit. On the issue of manliness; I appreciated your take, it hit the nail on the head. However what is the personality flaw that makes this characterization attractive to people? Can that many people be that insecure? I have similar memories respect for and comparisons of my dad. WWTD?......and do the opposite indeed. As I have said elsewhere it seems to me that being able to marry who you want is the "pursuit of happiness".

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  7. Avatar photo
    Patrick

    Sorta found it interesting that in the same podcast where you concede on traditional marriage, you took pride in drawing a line that there are only 2 biological sexes. I wonder if there will be another Andrew Sullivan to alter your thinking on that over the next 20 years.

    Or more interestingly, I wonder if conceding marriage helped bring us to a world where law professors say “people with the capacity for pregnancy.” Maybe there’s no connective tissue there, but I wonder.

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    1. Pohl

      Jonah is all at sea on this type of question. He gets a lot of other stuff right, though.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Holly

    The liberal concept of compassion is giving away other people’s money? What? Have you ever been part of a church/synagogue/charity that helped the poor? Super out of touch statement with a wicked bias. Yikes.

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    1. Will

      There is a difference between giving away your own money (the charities you describe) and giving away someone else's money (by voting to tax them to support whatever government program you are in favor of), which is what Jonah was likely alluding to. It's an overgeneralization for sure (plenty of progressives are also personally charitable), but the larger point is on the mark.

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  9. Andreas Ohioensis

    On gay marriage, I appreciate Jonah’s intellectual honesty. While I also get that the solo-podcast medium may not be as conducive to laying out complex arguments, I think he’s had a stab at this topic a few times here, in other podcasts, and columns, so I think he’s gotten a reasonable chance to explain his position at this point.

    I put it to Jonah that his good-faith reasoning is a bit muddled on all this, or at least has some major assumptions embedded that aren’t coming to the surface.

    At the outset, I do like his point that the NR folks probably don’t have an utterly persuasive formulation of all this. I also like his argument that Romanticism view of, well, romance has a lot of drawbacks (I return to this below). Even from my perspective as a small-o orthodox Christian, I also am sympathetic to Jonah’s own libertarian instincts on this subject, certainly where the federal government is involved. If I had my druthers, I would probably get the federal government out of socio-cultural tweaking and norm-formation of this sort as much as possible, since it is rarely going to conform to my own moral preferences. That seems to me an entirely coherent and defensible position; fine and good.

    For all that, however, Jonah and his interlocutors are not framing this in truly libertarian terms. The fact is that no one except maybe the hardest of hard-core libertarians wants the government completely out of the formation of norms and morals: not Jonah, not the NR crew (except maybe Charlie?), not LGBT advocates, not conservative Christians. On many issues, most everyone wants the government sending some norm-forming messages into the broader culture, including legislative incentives and barriers. This could include censorship (e.g. no hard-core porn on television), legalization of hard drugs, or the proposal that some conservatives have recently floated about tougher enforcement of age limits for social media. Comprehensive policy efficacy is not really the aim. Instead, it a first attempt at shaping behavior. Like Jonah himself has said on such issues, he and other parents would still prefer that first fence of government signaling acceptable behavior on a number of these issues because it will turn away some meaningful number of kids on the margins when scaled up. In other words, many of us prefer particular policies because they reinforce certain norms and institutions.
    When it comes to gay marriage specifically ,I think Jonah admits this part pretty openly when he talks about the persuasiveness of the “neocon” or utilitarian case for gay marriage per Rausch and Sullivan: the institution of marriage will help civilize the “horn dogs,” whether gay or straight. Here, the essential element isn’t libertarian autonomy but rather civilizing norms and morals that have social outcomes we like. And that’s where things get messy.

    First of all, I want to see the sociological evidence that the outlet of legal marriage at the state and eventually federal level (or in other countries, for that matter) in the last few decades has had any measurable effect upon, say, male promiscuity. Even fairly blurry data (https://news.gallup.com/poll/329975/one-lgbt-americans-married-sex-spouse.aspx) would suggest marriage is a rather niche outcome for the LGBT subset of the population. So I am simply unpersuaded that this institution can even work as a tool for civilizing people in the manner Jonah and others propose.

    But let’s just leave aside the question of social utility and stipulate that it will come to have the desired effect as Jonah supposes. Then we run into the unstated assumptions of both sides: we’re actually debating competing moral norms and frameworks. We all have these, not least on matters pertaining to sexuality. We have norms that discourage and even forbid pedophilia, bestiality, child pornography, or norms to police the boundary between consent and assault. And before anyone shouts, “But those are different!” they may be, but to settle that requires a much bigger philosophical debate, and since we’ve already discounted the coherent libertarian approach, one has to justify those distinctions on positive grounds rather than “live and let live.” That is, you’ll actually have to start debating what human sexuality is “for” (a la Christine Emba).

    Jonah often says he likes “dogmas.” We all do. Let us observe that until very recently, both social and religious dogma frowned upon and often forbade homosexual activity. This largely includes, by the way, the oft-cited examples of Greece and Rome. Go read Juvenal: even many/most of the pagan moralists were pretty convinced that something was askew with homoeroticism even if there was plenty of social and legal toleration. And again, Jonah’s not really making a case for libertarian toleration anyway but rather proactive public morality. If we’re not arguing on consistent libertarian first principles, then I think the burden of proof still lies overwhelmingly with the side that would rewrite or erase this particular dogma, especially if you actually intend to persuade social conservatives.

    This, then, is the real divide between Jonah and the more socially conservative approach. Even if they wouldn’t put it in quite these terms, social conservatives prefer something like moral censorship on this issue and they most certainly don’t want big institutions like the government actively normalizing homosexuality in the manner Jonah seems to propose. Social conservatives at NR or wherever don’t want the government to institutionalize homosexuality for the same fundamental reason they don’t want the government to sanction pedophilia. Namely, it violates their “dogma” and sense of acceptable cultural norms. (Admittedly, there is probably a difference of degree here, but not ultimately a difference in kind—or at least, a true difference in kind needs to be proven.)
    For his part, I sense Jonah at heart finds homosexuality basically unobjectionable—I imagine the ugly friction of the cultural conflict over the issue is probably more bothersome to him. That’s a valid position to hold, but again, it’s one that actually needs to be defended positively against a different morality and philosophy of sexuality. This is where I find Jonah’s neocon/social utility argument versus the NR “defending the institution of marriage” framework so dissatisfying: it’s skirting the fundamental question out of (I suspect) a well-intentioned politesse. Both sides would rather talk in platitudes or cliches about institutional or policy outcomes than actually think hard about the telos of human sexuality, especially when many of us squirm at appearing to criticize gay friends, family, colleagues, etc.

    Finally—Jonah may not have said it here but he has noted it in other venues—he also stresses that the argument that people are “born gay” has been persuasive to him. Again, in itself, that’s a valid position to hold. Like Jonah, I find that line has been rather sapped by the trans arguments about the fluidity and subjectivity of sex and gender, and I rather question the degree to which that case was made in good faith.

    But even then, I think Jonah’s basically letting Ye Olde Romanticism—which he rightly decries up front—slip in through the back door. In the first place, marriage has historically not been about getting that perfect sexual/romantic fix every or even most days of one’s life anyway. As Jonah notes, that’s grossly unrealistic, and it’s a standard that will make people flee committed relationships and marriage. To suggest that one’s sexual profile needs to be catered to by social norms strikes me as Romanticism of the rankest degree, which Jonah would immediately spot elsewhere. We’re all born with various proclivities, sexual and otherwise, many of them we all generally acknowledge to be dehumanizing to others or oneself (e.g. pedophilia). Many heterosexual men are also born “horn dogs,” but that’s not a strong argument for sanctioned polygamy or polyamory. Being born or incidentally shaped by one’s culture in a certain way is no moral trump card. Again, someone might say, “that’s different because of consent, etc.” but we’re not talking about toleration here; we’re talking about what the government ought to actively encourage in social norms and institutions. In much the same way Jonah doesn’t even want the government to tolerate hard drugs through legalization because it offends his moral sensibilities, social conservatives don’t want government sanction homosexuality through novel social norms.

    In sum, none of this settles the issue. I just insist we should have the real debate instead of the superficial, rhetorical one about “institutions” and policy outcomes.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Mudskipper

      "Even fairly blurry data (https://news.gallup.com/poll/329975/one-lgbt-americans-married-sex-spouse.aspx) would suggest marriage is a rather niche outcome for the LGBT subset of the population."

      Gay marriage has been legal only for a comparatively short time. You'll notice in the Gallup data that more LGBT people are married to opposite partners than same-sex partners. This is likely an historical artifact of the fact that many gays alive today grew up and got married to an opposite sex spouse during a time when that was expected of them. Much of the gay population missed the opportunity to get married during the key years of their twenties and thirties. It is really too soon to be making judgements on how the ability to get married has affected the behavior of the LGBT population.

      "Both sides would rather talk in platitudes or cliches about institutional or policy outcomes than actually think hard about the telos of human sexuality"

      Actually, I have thought hard about this subject. And I doubt you and I would ever come to an agreement because we are starting from such different places.

      I suspect you believe that humans were created by God for a purpose and that human sexuality is bound up in that purpose. So the telos of human sexuality is whatever God intended.

      I don't believe in God. So any argument on this basis would fall flat on its face with me, even if it dressed up in after-the-fact secular rationalizations. That isn't to say that there aren't secular arguments against gay marriage that could be made--after all, life is messy and unintended consequences abound. Yet I haven't heard any convincing arguments that societal costs of gay marriage are large enough (or even exist, for that matter) to prohibit individual liberty in this matter.

      My understanding of human sexuality is shaped by my readings in fetal development, evolution, human biology/neuroscience and animal behavior. I suspect my mental furnishings on this subject are very, very different from yours and lead to very different conclusions about human sexuality.

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      1. Andreas Ohioensis

        Re: data: Maybe, but I don't even really believe legal institutional marriage has the salutary restraints Jonah attributes to it even for heterosexuals.

        Re: teloi: My theological/philosophical priors are largely immaterial to my argument, (which is that we need to actually have the philosophical argument). I myself could get to the same restrained view of sexuality via Christian fundamentalism, Platonism/Aristotelianism, or modern Epicureanism, which is indifferent to God/ the gods. Even some atheists and skeptics--I think Roger Scruton was in this class--could be broadly sympathetic.

        In any case, what you're saying is all a good case for libertarianism. And I'm open to that being the most just policy outcome. As far as I track you, however, none of that seems to be a defense of what Jonah's arguing, which (I think) is that there's a positive good in the federal government expanding/creating a new cultural norm.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Mudskipper

          " I myself could get to the same restrained view of sexuality via Christian fundamentalism, Platonism/Aristotelianism, or modern Epicureanism, which is indifferent to God/ the gods. Even some atheists and skeptics--I think Roger Scruton was in this class--could be broadly sympathetic."

          I'm sure that people can arrive at a restrained view of sexuality from an number of vantage points. (I myself am pretty damned restrained.) But I'm not at all sure what this has to do with homosexuality, per se. Are you saying that homosexual sex is by definition unrestrained sex? I could guess that you might get there by claiming the only "right" sex is sex that is open to procreation. But that is largely a religious point of view. (Scruton, btw, is Anglican.)

          If by restrained sex you are talking about sexual fidelity within a committed relationship and not sleeping around, I'd bet that married lesbians would win the prize for restrained sex.

          "As far as I track you, however, none of that seems to be a defense of what Jonah's arguing, which (I think) is that there's a positive good in the federal government expanding/creating a new cultural norm."

          This woman thinks there was a positive good in the federal government support of the new cultural norm of full autonomy for women. I would assume that blacks felt the same way about the new cultural norm of no segregation when the civil rights act was passed.

          But I would like to point out that the federal government doesn't usually create a new cultural norm. The culture changes, usually through decades of hard-fought activism, and government reacts. At this point, over 70% of the population supports gay marriage. In other words, religous conservatives have already lost this particular argument within our culture. What positive good would come out of the federal government NOT recognizing this new norm?

          But if you are looking for positive good in legalizing homosexual marriages, I'd point out that it actually strengthens the idea that marriage is important. As Jonah points out, gays were not happy with civil unions. And I totally understand why: marriage in our culture signifies a level of commitment by the couple to each other and of society's recognition of the couple that civil unions simply don't. A married couple forms an economic unit that makes financial success more likely, they form a support system that enhances emotional health and increases self-sufficiency, and simply help with creating a more stable society. As Jonah says, it is all very bourgeois.

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          1. Andreas Ohioensis

            Okay, last go-round I can do on this one...

            RE: "restraint": I mean restraint the vague way Jonah uses it, which I think approximately entails sexual monogamy. Admittedly, there are going to be different definitions. Conceivably, some will see heterosexual polygamy as more "restrained" than monogamous homosexuality. Presumably, most everyone agrees for the moment that, say, bestiality is unrestrained. Et cetera. I think those differences are worth interrogating--why do we discourage bestiality, consented incest, and polygamy? What are the limiting principles? Are we just making up the rules as we go along to avoid socially uncomfortable subjects? It's the debate I wish Jonah and the NR folks were actually having but aren't.

            But none of that has much to do with the point I was making to Jonah.

            Hence, I personally don't think restraint has much of anything to do with homosexuality in the context of this particular conversation. Jonah--who himself does believe in God--was the one who brought up that particular angle as a "pro." And here's the thing: *I* don't even think marriage is an effective restraining mechanism even for heterosexuals. Just look at out-of-wedlock births (40% of all births and rising), and there, I expect wedded births are probably overrepresented and must account for only a rather small percentage of the heterosexual activity in the U.S. How much does marriage actual tame heterosexuals? I see no compelling evidence it does. My point is, Jonah needs to actually prove that marriage-qua-institution actually does what he asserts rather than vaguely gesturing to an optimistic notion of "restraining the horn dogs" that seems to have no empirical support in evidence.

            RE: norms: I'm much more persuaded by the second option, that the government tends to recognize developing norms in a culture rather than enact them most of the time. That's a major pillar of my position here. But again, Jonah does NOT agree here. At least in this case and others like drug legalization, censorship, and social media, he wants government setting the tone, or something.

            The positive good of government not recognizing a new norm is that I find social conditioning of this sort creepy as all get out. Again, it triggers my libertarian side. I'm even suspicious when the government comes ostensibly comes out in favor of my own preferred norms. It's why I'm disturbed by the integralists and nationalists; I don't want the federal government (or state governments in most cases) doing what amounts to social propaganda. And it bears noting: what the social conditioners giveth, the social conditioners (can) taketh away. What 70% of the population might like right now is not guaranteed to remain static or to continue on in some permanent direct of Historical Progress as defined in the last 5 minutes. While I think current trends are not going to change in my lifetime, history is messy, and I would rather there be a robust norm/institutional habit that the government doesn't try to condition society into whatever is "popular" or "progressive" at the moment ( e.g. eugenics).

            As for the positive goods you suggest, this just brings us back to my same gripe above. On one side, I don't see how the status consciousness the LGBT is decisive at all here. Presumably, the polyamorous, polygamous, incestuous couples, etc. would love all the same status and recognition, but we can't and won't give that to everyone--unless you opt for the libertarian approach here and eliminate the status distinction altogether. In other words, I don't see any meaningful limiting principle. As for the benefit of emotions, economics, bourgeois-ification--that again is begging the same question, assuming that government policy and legal marriage make people bourgeois rather than it being the case that the bourgeois are those who get and stay married. Perhaps the former is indeed the true dynamic, but I want to see the actual evidence, and it needs to be cogent enough to overcome the many counterexamples (e.g. illegal drugs) where the government's attempts at conditioning has any appreciable effect on social or cultural outcomes in the long run.

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    2. Pohl

      Insightful remarks. Chesterton’s fence is something Jonah usually takes seriously. I think on some issues, though, he’s succumbing to the temptation to shrug and say, “What’s the big deal? I have gay friends and don’t want to exclude them.” This is a feeling, coming from a good place, more than the beginning of a good argument. I wish Jonah spent less time on the mundane inanities of liberals vs conservatives, and more time studying the proper ends of human society, which are not always served by bending a knee to the zeitgeist.

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  10. Avatar photo
    CP

    Ah, romantic love—undermining marriage since at least the 12th Century.

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