Isolation or hope

Keep men away from each other. They are dangerous in groups.

Look at what happened in Minneapolis, in Portland, in Kenosha.

Look at the wreckage those wild men left behind. Years of entrepreneurs building businesses and communities from the foundation of the previous generation of immigrants. Swept away in a night, a week, a month. The cities burned; hope fled to the suburbs, the small towns, into the countryside, off the grid.

Keep men away from each other. They are dangerous in groups. What if men follow wise warrior kings? Won’t they resist the evil of our day and stand for honor and righteousness?

But wait: Just in the nick of time, social and news media have successfully affirmed the irrelevance of men so they isolate and aren’t listening to any but the discrediting voices that crush the hope for meaning in manhood.

Welcome to 2020.

Men will stay away from each other. Many believe they’re insignificant, impotent in the face of oceanic forces of hostility to masculinity. The media bombardments of sexual abuse (#MeToo)—much of which is legitimate—and the riots in the streets of the cities in response to police brutality—some real but much inflated or invented—have had their effect: men feeling helpless, beaten down and hiding in their caves. Not man caves, but puppy dens. The cowed men who have enjoyed some of the successes and most of the stresses of the American way of life are quietly whimpering in hopelessness. Numbing their pain.

Men won’t stay away from each other. There will be yet another police shooting to trigger outrage and violence in the streets. The spilled gas is gushing through the cities and just needs a match, a spark. Riots sell advertising on the news, prompt posts on social media and clicks on websites.

Men, don’t stay away from each other. Come together and share your numbed pain. Listen to old and new stories about wise warrior kings. Encourage each other to love your wives and children despite feeling helpless and hopeless. Speak what may be frail hope and weak love into a community that probably has you on mute. Even if yours are the only ears that hear your voice, it will change the world.

Black men, white men, Asian men, Native men will all come to new life when tales of honor echo in the atmosphere. There is hope when we listen, when we care. Lies divide us. Love connects us.

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