How do you do masculinity at such a time as this?
It's telling that, now that war is a very present reality (sorry, Americans - your government shooting citizens dead with no due process, your government flooding city streets with armed militia, is civil war...I know history told you it would look more glorious, the clothing would be more instagrammable, there would be options for which flag to rally round, there'd be a cool soundtrack...but this is civil war. You are already at war. The fact that your government is also committing acts of war on other countries, rather than addressing the civil war, is just evidence of how little they care about "ordinary working Americans") the snide "men used to die in wars - whatever happened to that?" posts from the toxic feminism side of the internet are nowhere to be found. Because women are realising that it was never just men that war destroyed. Because those women in particular are waking up to the reality that, if the man whose full time, dependable income supports their household stops because that man dies in war, they're probably not going to be able to flawlessly function on their social media income - which doesn't issue a predictable paycheck on a reliable schedule. Because those women are waking up to the reality that people who are caught up in war aren't buying shit they don't need.
Not every man will be able to serve as a soldier in war. Every war has had its conscientious objectors, and their role was as necessary as those of the soldiers and strategists.
Disabled men exist, and have disabilities which prevent them serving in war - there is no shame in existing as a man in a disabled body at a time of war, however much the aggressors in that war will insist there is, and however quickly their views come to influence those of the defenders.
I personally don't believe men who hold responsibility for others, whether as parents of children who are not yet adults, or as carers for dependent adults, should be active participants in war; those men have a vital and necessary role. They are needed by people who will become the war's collateral damage. They will be needed after the war, to support their people, and advocate for them, as society rebuilds. It is actually more selfish of those men to sign up to potentially be killed in war. Or to be imprisoned, perhaps long after the war, for war crimes. You took on the responsibility of fathering children. You agreed to provide kinship care for a dependent adult - you do not get to renege on those responsibilities because it seems more fun, and more masculine, to potentially die in war.
I also do not support national service, or militias formed from average citizens. I believe that those involved in war should be highly trained, well-resourced, and compassionately provided for in peace time professionals. I would also vastly prefer those professionals to engage in war in online virtual reality spheres, where victory is gained through the best strategy, and no real blood is spilled, but I'm a hopeless idealist sometimes.
The average man, therefore, should never be expected to die in war. There should be no pressure to sign up to hold a gun on behalf of the wealthiest 1%, or to be obliged to take arms to defend yourself from the henchmen of the 1%.
But the Warrior is a powerful male archetype. Despite the very real barriers to me serving in the UK's army, in the very likely situation that we end up in some kind of war in the near future (I'm legally blind, I have a severe psychiatric diagnosis, I have other emerging physical disabilities, I have kinship care responsibilities for someone who would not manage in my prolonged absence, or in the wake of my death), despite the fact that I have recognised that I need to move beyond the Warrior, I still find myself thinking about how I could fight if it comes to it. Who I would fight with, what I would fight for.
But that is no longer my role. I am no longer in my Warrior archetype.
That doesn't stop me feeling I have to be in Warrior archetype, that remaining as a Warrior, something which hasn't served me for a while at this point, is some kind of moral obligation that I have to pick up; that not being a Warrior is somehow a moral failure, a form of cowardice, inherently unmasculine.
Magicians have a role in war, too. Chaos can be an excellent fuel for dynamic spellwork - whether literal "wave a magic wand" spellwork, or the spellwork of spotting patterns in how that energy moves, and harnessing those patterns to create a desired outcome. And the Magician will be needed to create the world that comes after war. That is my responsibility, my performance of masculinity in these times; to focus on the world I want to inhabit, and, even as war rages around me, to commit to doing the groundwork of putting in the foundations, so that I'm ready to build as the dust of war begins to settle.
It's telling that, now that war is a very present reality (sorry, Americans - your government shooting citizens dead with no due process, your government flooding city streets with armed militia, is civil war...I know history told you it would look more glorious, the clothing would be more instagrammable, there would be options for which flag to rally round, there'd be a cool soundtrack...but this is civil war. You are already at war. The fact that your government is also committing acts of war on other countries, rather than addressing the civil war, is just evidence of how little they care about "ordinary working Americans") the snide "men used to die in wars - whatever happened to that?" posts from the toxic feminism side of the internet are nowhere to be found. Because women are realising that it was never just men that war destroyed. Because those women in particular are waking up to the reality that, if the man whose full time, dependable income supports their household stops because that man dies in war, they're probably not going to be able to flawlessly function on their social media income - which doesn't issue a predictable paycheck on a reliable schedule. Because those women are waking up to the reality that people who are caught up in war aren't buying shit they don't need.
Not every man will be able to serve as a soldier in war. Every war has had its conscientious objectors, and their role was as necessary as those of the soldiers and strategists.
Disabled men exist, and have disabilities which prevent them serving in war - there is no shame in existing as a man in a disabled body at a time of war, however much the aggressors in that war will insist there is, and however quickly their views come to influence those of the defenders.
I personally don't believe men who hold responsibility for others, whether as parents of children who are not yet adults, or as carers for dependent adults, should be active participants in war; those men have a vital and necessary role. They are needed by people who will become the war's collateral damage. They will be needed after the war, to support their people, and advocate for them, as society rebuilds. It is actually more selfish of those men to sign up to potentially be killed in war. Or to be imprisoned, perhaps long after the war, for war crimes. You took on the responsibility of fathering children. You agreed to provide kinship care for a dependent adult - you do not get to renege on those responsibilities because it seems more fun, and more masculine, to potentially die in war.
I also do not support national service, or militias formed from average citizens. I believe that those involved in war should be highly trained, well-resourced, and compassionately provided for in peace time professionals. I would also vastly prefer those professionals to engage in war in online virtual reality spheres, where victory is gained through the best strategy, and no real blood is spilled, but I'm a hopeless idealist sometimes.
The average man, therefore, should never be expected to die in war. There should be no pressure to sign up to hold a gun on behalf of the wealthiest 1%, or to be obliged to take arms to defend yourself from the henchmen of the 1%.
But the Warrior is a powerful male archetype. Despite the very real barriers to me serving in the UK's army, in the very likely situation that we end up in some kind of war in the near future (I'm legally blind, I have a severe psychiatric diagnosis, I have other emerging physical disabilities, I have kinship care responsibilities for someone who would not manage in my prolonged absence, or in the wake of my death), despite the fact that I have recognised that I need to move beyond the Warrior, I still find myself thinking about how I could fight if it comes to it. Who I would fight with, what I would fight for.
But that is no longer my role. I am no longer in my Warrior archetype.
That doesn't stop me feeling I have to be in Warrior archetype, that remaining as a Warrior, something which hasn't served me for a while at this point, is some kind of moral obligation that I have to pick up; that not being a Warrior is somehow a moral failure, a form of cowardice, inherently unmasculine.
Magicians have a role in war, too. Chaos can be an excellent fuel for dynamic spellwork - whether literal "wave a magic wand" spellwork, or the spellwork of spotting patterns in how that energy moves, and harnessing those patterns to create a desired outcome. And the Magician will be needed to create the world that comes after war. That is my responsibility, my performance of masculinity in these times; to focus on the world I want to inhabit, and, even as war rages around me, to commit to doing the groundwork of putting in the foundations, so that I'm ready to build as the dust of war begins to settle.
In the current wars - the ones that are happening, and the ones that are very much threatened as near-future possibilities - the major issue is the lack of Kings. Yes, the UK has a King - but he's not going to be involved in war in the way past Kings were. We don't have Warrior Kings anymore - and, on an energetic and psychic level, that's a good and necessary thing. But we do need Kings. The King's role in war, on a masculine archetype and energetic level, is to provide a truthful, actionable commentary - for everyone, not just those actively fighting the war. What, observably, evidence-backed, verifiable, is actually happening? What do non-combatants need to do to stay safe, to support the war effort, to prepare for the world after the war? What are the legitimate aims for the war? If this is a war of aggression, rather than defence, when is "enough"? How are the boundaries and sovereigntys of those we're aggressing against still respected? If, as a man, you believe "women are just emotional and over the top all the time", you cannot allow war to be "take over everything and everyone, because we deserve to rule the world!" - that is being emotional and over the top. And you have already said that is "not masculine."
Masculinity is focus: In war, focus says "Who is a legitimate target? What are the sustainable outcome possibilities here? What is the limit of our aggression? When do we accept defeat? What do we do if we do have to accept defeat, whether we're aggressors or at war in self-defence?"
Masculinity is focus: In war, focus says "Who is a legitimate target? What are the sustainable outcome possibilities here? What is the limit of our aggression? When do we accept defeat? What do we do if we do have to accept defeat, whether we're aggressors or at war in self-defence?"
Masculinity is clarity: In war, clarity says "What is the truth about what is happening here? What patterns of what might happen can be evidenced, and what do we need to turn those patterns to the outcomes society can tolerate?"
Masculinity is support: In war, support is non-combatant men focusing on guiding other non-combatants through the experience. It is engagement with social efforts. Where your country is defensively at war, it is responsiveness to social provisions that those at war need. (Aggressors neither need nor deserve support; aggression is the shadow side of the Warrior, and shadow sides, of people or of archetypes, should not be externally nourished or validated, because they are inherently destructive.)
War has always had its poets, its journalists, its artists - because there is as much a duty of masculinity to comment on the impact of war as there is to be a participant in that impact.
Men who are not at a time in their life to be Warriors in the current or coming war still have roles to play: those roles, however, will require those men to stop worrying about "but I rely on Instagram/Youtube for my income - there's a limit to what I can do/say here!" Meta is on the aggressors' side in America's wars. If that's not your side? You need to stop taking Meta's paychecks. The time of deciding which master you serve - money or meaning - has come. For a long time, you've been able to serve both. Now, you have to choose.
I'm not monetised. I'm not even close to being monetised. If I were bothered about such things, I'd be yapping on about being shadow banned - but I don't support Meta, so I don't care whether I'm fully banned, shadow banned, or just a hallucination of my own mind. American aggressors aren't paying my bills - not even in my current day job.
Men who are not at a time in their life to be Warriors in the current or coming war still have roles to play: those roles, however, will require those men to stop worrying about "but I rely on Instagram/Youtube for my income - there's a limit to what I can do/say here!" Meta is on the aggressors' side in America's wars. If that's not your side? You need to stop taking Meta's paychecks. The time of deciding which master you serve - money or meaning - has come. For a long time, you've been able to serve both. Now, you have to choose.
I'm not monetised. I'm not even close to being monetised. If I were bothered about such things, I'd be yapping on about being shadow banned - but I don't support Meta, so I don't care whether I'm fully banned, shadow banned, or just a hallucination of my own mind. American aggressors aren't paying my bills - not even in my current day job.
British aggressors I don't support may be paying part of my bills through my current job (I'm working on a contract that is partly funded by a local council which is heavily influenced by Rupert Lowe - although the money was agreed before he was involved in the politics of a region he otherwise wants nothing to do with.) The goal of my current contract is building community, and building a business which will be a space for people to step away from the war when it finally comes to the UK. If that goal becomes corrupted by Warrior positions I cannot support? Then I will have a decision to make about whether I continue taking that paycheck.
As I move into the Magician archetype, this building of future and community serves my journey.
We've talked about the roles of Warriors, Kings, and Magicians in war - but the Lover also has a role. The Lover's role is to provide refuge for those caught up in war, and to be the central force in the healing society will desperately need after the war.
There are many ways for masculinity to be present and involved in war, whatever archetype is right or necessary for you.
As I move into the Magician archetype, this building of future and community serves my journey.
We've talked about the roles of Warriors, Kings, and Magicians in war - but the Lover also has a role. The Lover's role is to provide refuge for those caught up in war, and to be the central force in the healing society will desperately need after the war.
There are many ways for masculinity to be present and involved in war, whatever archetype is right or necessary for you.
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