You have probably heard the news. US Senator Josh Hawley, of Missouri, wrote a book. It’s titled Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. You have probably also seen an array of reactions to it. For my small part, I want to point out something fundamental that should, I think, inform reactions to arguments in favor of manhood. It usually doesn’t, though.

Manhood does not require an argument in favor of it. Neither does anything else that constitutes a human being’s individual identity.

I am a man because I am a man. I was born this way. Maybe you were born this way. Maybe you were assigned an identity that was at odds with being born this way. Maybe you decided to change how you appear to others. Maybe that requires an argument. But not the way we were born. There is no argument needed. We are what we are.

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The manhood that Hawley is arguing for depends on stepping on other people’s necks. Most people do not offer up their necks for the purpose of being stepped on. They must be convinced to offer up their necks.  

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Hawley’s book, however, is chock full of arguments. I won’t recount them. You can find them here and here and here and here. My point is that he’s making an argument in favor of something that does not require an argument. Every reaction to that fact should be: why?

Moreover, the manhood that Hawley is arguing in favor of is the most widely recognized variation of manhood – in that there’s 10,000 years of human history behind the idea that men should be at the top of every unit of organized human effort. Men have been on top of the heap of humanity for so long that most people don’t see it as a choice. They see it as the way things are, as if it were the natural order.

So, before we get to any other question, we have to ask why someone like a United States senator from the state of Missouri took the time to write a book that makes an argument in favor of something that 1) does not require an argument in favor of it and 2) that’s widely recognized after centuries of practice as the natural order of things. Why is he arguing in favor of something that’s unquestioned by so many?

Because it cannot exist on its own. It cannot exist independent of the organized human effort over which it has come to prevail. It cannot exist without these arguments, these constant arguments, because it requires convincing other people that it is not only good but natural. 

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Why does it require convincing other people that it is not only good but natural? Because most people don’t like being stepped on. The manhood that Hawley is arguing for depends on stepping on other people’s necks. Most people do not offer up their necks for the purpose of being stepped on. They must be convinced to offer up their necks. 

So Hawley’s book is not about manhood. It’s about power.

Manhood doesn’t require an argument in favor of it.

But dominance does.

I’m going to leave you with a second question. After asking why he’s making an argument in favor of something that does not require an argument, we should ask why we keep listening to an argument that depends on convincing other people that it’s not only good but natural to offer up their necks for the purpose of being stepped on.

Why do we keep honoring these arguments with our attention?

We don’t have to. 

We choose to.

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