To Fix Him, We Must Remember Him
- Fairness Killed Freedom
- The Forgotten Half
- Manhood is Broken and the Fix is 500 Years Old
- The Forgotten Half
- Another Disorder Habituating Drugs: A.D.H.D.
A bit about the writers first.
D.J. Houtz is an author, specializing in short stories, poetry and the spoken word. As he states, “I consider myself a modern day renaissance man. I write, I paint, I craft. I am willing to craft, I am willing to learn, I am willing to discuss.” He holds a certification in Musical Theatre Performance from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy & Conservatory of the Performing Arts in New York City.
Grainger holds a B.S. in Psychology and is currently earning his Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Liberty University. He is currently nationally certified in nutrition, wellness, and professional life coaching. He’s an active men’s ministry leader and pastoral counselor with over 6 years of experience, currently seeing clients in both faith-based and clinical settings.
Together they share a love for the arts as well as the vital strengths that man present to society. This is a co-authored call to action for redefinition of what it means to be a man.
During a recent conversation, I had a friend tell me that what appears to be the largest void, change, gap, in the proper comprehensive definition of manhood, had been solved centuries ago. In other words, to solve the future epidemic of what it means to be a man, one need only to look back. I’ll let D.J. Houtz tell you himself.
Houtz
The Unraveling of the Self-Made Man
Man, manhood, manpower. Historically speaking “Man” has been defined as a mix of both biological and social roles. But when has the image of man shifted? When has it been less acceptable to hide your emotions and play the more dominant role?
From the caveman up until the biblical times, man had two roles, provide and defend. Go out to gather resources to help your family and community but be able to defend your people at costs when the time comes. In the times of chivalry, the ideal image of the man was the Knight. Abiding by vows and promises to your king or suffer the consequence of dishonor. The renaissance man, the peak of the image of men in society, in my opinion, was the well-rounded. He was the swordsman, the craftsman, the painter, the poet. He was emotional, dominant, faithful. Not just the one trick show but the jack of all trades. Even if he wasn’t the master of everything, he was that go-to man to get anything done. Man was independent.
A great shift happened during a major time in history. The industrial revolution. This global movement to more efficient and stable manufacturing process was only the start of the downfall of the image of man. As major events across the world sparked war and terror, the man was left as just a shell of its former glory. Man now needed to be a part of a group, club, or movement to be heard. The feeling of independence was now just a thought on paper. Without realizing it, the ability to think and do for yourself was being taken away. As technology advances, many more manifestations of the independence of man were being stripped.
Modern day, we are all guilty of using screens for different purposes. But a major role in the downfall has been using these screens to do for you what you could have done yourself. In the article “Masculinity at the End of History”, Matthew Gasda made an incredible point.
“Today, male adolescence largely lacks that primitive, self-organizing spontaneity.”
By using the instant gratification of being online, we lose the very fundamental bit that made us man. Gasda went on to say,
“American manhood has essentially become schizophrenic: historically determined on one hand and socially deconstructed and defenestrated on the other. Unless American masculinity can historicize itself, it will remain in a state of non-crisis, unable to claim the meaningful, productive aspects of its heritage and unable to explain how it got to where it is.”
We are no longer doing things ourselves. Our images are more of comparison rather than independence. We’ve lost the ability to bond with fellow man. Society and technology has been making it more difficult for this image of man to have independence. We’ve turned into a race of wanting to do better because it makes you look better rather than to do better, which results in being a better person. I firmly believe we, as man, need to stop looking at a screen for comparison or gratification and start looking at a mirror for reflection and independent thinking.
Grainger
The Death of the Well-Rounded Man
I am convinced Houtz is onto something. In the article, Gasda maintains that in crisis, man is useful:
“Masculinity is desperate for a crisis. It is docile, unsure, and formless. At most, it is at the germinal phase of crisis, lacking a catalytic agent to propel it to its full-blown state, which at least can be registered and reckoned with. After all, crisis implies that something is happening, that something is at stake. The uncatalyzed proto-crisis, or the noncrisis, of American masculinity is repressed, unexpressed, yet omnipresent.”
Men were increasingly defined by their professions rather than their ability to embody a wide-ranging cultural literacy. Where once the ideal was to be well-rounded, the emerging economy rewarded being highly skilled at a single trade or technical field. Practicality overtook polish.
The world wars accelerated this shift. Millions of men returned from battle with a new sense of masculinity rooted in survival, hard work, and providing for families. After such trauma, pursuits like poetry or painting could seem frivolous, even indulgent. Strength, reliability, and productivity replaced artistry as the cultural expectations of men. By the 1950s, the American man was often pictured in a gray flannel suit, devoted to his career, his paycheck, and his role as provider, not as a patron of the arts.
This narrowing of culture deepened with the rise of mass media and consumer culture. Men were encouraged to show expertise in sports, cars, or business, but far less often in literature or music. The arts were increasingly feminized in American imagination. Ballet and painting were “for women,” while sports and mechanical skills were “for men.” The well-rounded Renaissance ideal, once admired, now felt distant.
In today’s digital age, specialization has only intensified. The pressure to achieve in specific careers or niches leaves little time for cultivating broader cultural or artistic skills. Men may know every statistic about their favorite sports team or every nuance of a software language, but far fewer could discuss a symphony, compose a poem, or sketch a landscape.
In losing the total man, we replaced it with, “Real men don’t cry” and “I don’t need anyone’s help. I got this by myself.” Both are patently false claims. It’s a balance. I talk about that here: Emotional Homeostasis.
This dichotomy reflects today’s struggle among men. To be emotionally intelligent, men must pull towards the totality and wholeness that is man, not merely the one-trick pony of “Look at all my cars.” The self-made man, complete with nuanced, well-rounded culture, has been replaced by the expert, the technician, the narrowly competent worker. As Houtz noted, the real man, the comprehensive man, as Jason Wilson calls it, has left the building.
We stand at a crossroads. If we want men to be equally valued in love and in labor, admired for their minds as much as their drive, we must return to what once made them whole. The pursuit of science, the appreciation of art, the reading of literature, the making of music, and the wrestling with philosophy. They are the lifeblood of true masculine depth, and without them, manhood itself withers.
Stay Classy GP!
Grainger