Where the men are
<p>A commenter wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>
Think about it: guys like Leo Dicaprio or Owen Wilson for example.<br />
These guys are not exactly manly men but seem more like teen boys.
</p></blockquote>
<p>There&#8217;s no need to invoke exotic theories like endocrine disruptors; they&#8217;re just reflecting the zeitgeist.  I just turned 51, and a disturbingly large percentage of men in their twenties and thirties seem like spoiled narcissistic man-children to me.  I thought for a while that this might mean I was turning into the sort of crusty old fart I laughed at when I was twenty-five, until I noticed that the percentage of man-children varied a great deal depending on my social context.</p>
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<p>At the martial-arts school where I&#8217;m training, zero to not much.   Even the teenage boys there are pretty manly, on the whole &#8211; not surprising, since manliness is very nearly defined by stoicism and grace under pressure, and a martial-arts school should teach those things if it teaches nothing else.  Anywhere firearms are worn or displayed openly, ditto &#8212; go to a tactical-shooting match, for example, and you&#8217;ll see even prepubescent boys (and, though rarely, some girls) exemplifying quiet manliness in a very heartening degree.</p>
<p>On the other hand&#8230;when I go to places where people are talking rather than doing, the percentage of man-children rises.  Occasionally my wife Cathy and I go to screenings at the Bryn Mawr Film institute, most recently to see Sergei Bodrov&#8217;s <cite>The Mongol</cite>; it&#8217;s pretty much wall-to-wall man-children there, at least in the space not occupied by middle-aged women.  If our sample is representative, my <em>wife</em> is manlier than the average male art-film buff.</p>
<p>How does one tell?  The man-child projects a simultaneous sense of not being comfortable in his own skin and perpetually on display to others.  He&#8217;s twitchy, approval-seeking, and doesn&#8217;t know when to shut up.  He&#8217;s never been tested to anywhere near the limits of his physical or moral courage, and deep within himself he knows that because of this he is <em>weak</em>. Unproven.  Not really a man.  And it shows in a lot of little ways &#8211; posture, gaze patterns, that sort of thing.  He&#8217;ll overreact to small challenges and freeze or crumble under big ones.</p>
<p>One of the things this culture badly needs is a set of manhood ordeals.  Unlike the tribal societies of the past, we&#8217;re too various for one size to fit all &#8212; but to reliably turn boys into men (or, to put it in more fashionable terms, to help them become mature and inner-directed) you need to put them under stress in a way that, except for the small percentage that go through military boot camps, we basically don&#8217;t any more.</p>
<p>Instead, we prolong adolescence into the twenties and thirties.  With dolorous consequences for everyone&#8230;</p>
