In search of a post-political masculinity

Though ridiculed by Peterson and others, the controversial Gillette ad is not without merit. Men aren't at their best and there is no returning to the old days when women cut us too much slack. It's time, to be sure, we fulfilled our potential.

The commercial also calls on men to hold other men accountable for saying the "right thing" and acting the "right way." This, on the other hand, is flawed advice.

A centered and sensitive man, one of character and principles, doesn't judge on a right-wrong basis. He may voice opinions, perhaps criticize. But to take that next step and moralize is to give false hope there exists an external solution. Revered spiritual figures - think Socrates, Jesus, Luther, MLK - exemplify the intuitive belief man is answerable to something greater, a common source of moral unity beyond the power of reason and its earnest institutions.

Post-Christian society, of course, has slowly but surely discredited right-side metaphysical truth, with the moral and intellectual consequences now evident.

"Chaps need to do work on themselves, and the professor may be of some help," writes a Scottish journalist in a review of 12 Rules For Life. "What I reject is Peterson's mean-spirited contempt for those who want to morph or transcend the old binaries altogether-and who want to be given respect for doing so."

Contrary to the stirring rhetoric, Pat Kane and Gillette executives are not interested in honest-to-God transcendence. They shirk the hard and disciplined emotional work a man needs to do if he is to simultaneously celebrate and overcome his lower, boys-will-be-boys nature. Having declared gender meaningless, these blokes would rather divert their energy into political and social causes that promise to subdue - if not eradicate - traditional masculinity.

It's a catastrophe, like Peterson says. Moralizing male feminists urging other spiritually deprived men to plant both feet even deeper in a purely left-sided understanding of truth, love and freedom.

Still, ill-conceived attempts to engineer unison are not at the core of the conflict between the sexes. We men are so determined to prevail, to bitch, scream and squabble our way to a final victory over reality and its co-conspirator, irrational women, that we overlook a more nuanced interpretation of movements like #MeToo.

The competitive tension within perceived dichotomies - the idea, for example, that chaos can be conquered - is a make-believe perpetrated by men for the honorable purpose of giving organized progress a fighting chance. Alas, the practical benefits of this rationalist conceit have a use-by date. The bias eventually renders us too materialistic, too controlling, too exacting, too antagonistic.

Yes, in short, too masculine.

Rectifying the overreach, however, is problematic, since it requires input from what has been eviscerated by an obsession with science and technology. Without pausing to reflect, the untethered modern mind goes on striving for literal answers when the problem is a presumption that what is really at stake here can be solved rationally.

At the close of Part III of his Bible lectures, Peterson mentions his fondness for the hypothesis that men test ideas and women test men. They provoke us, highlighting our weaknesses and blind spots. Yet it doesn't dawn on him that this might be precisely what angry feminists are up to.