Modern Masculinity: Joe (34), IRISH

 

 

As featured in Verity Journal No.2 as part of a panel of interviews with French and International young men.

 

What does it mean for you to be a Man?

 

I’ve always believed there’s an important distinction to be drawn between what a man is and what (or who) a man ought to be. As to the first, I suppose I’d have to say that men are a complex mix of many different (often competing) impulses and motivations. As to who or what a man ought to be, it seems to me that the aim is not to dissolve the complexity but to give some sort of order to it; to get “a grip” or get “a handle” on oneself. To that end, I think that I and a majority of the men around me are required, from a relatively young age – whether we explicitly or tacitly acknowledge the fact – to grapple with an unmistakably classical (or in the least classically informed) ideal: powerful, decisive, intellectually refined, and physically resilient men of action. In my case, the chronology of the ideal centred on Caesar, Aeneas, Odysseus, and Achilles, back through Alexander and Aristotle to name just a few. Growing up, it always felt that here I had in something close to primary colours the range of traits, disposition, behaviours, values and beliefs from which to choose. Of course, I never believed that any of these men were in and of themselves perfect, as if Achilles’ battlefield prowess offset his vain-glorious pursuit of immortality through fame. Nevertheless, it always seemed as though here the full gamut of worthy and honourable dilemmas that any respectable man should face could be found. Perhaps historical and literary figures such as these continue to mould my conception of what it means to be a man. If that’s the case, it’s hard to imagine myself as being or trying to be anything other than anachronistic. It’s equally possible that this is no longer true: that there’s a void to be filled.

 

How do you know you are in love?

 

I’m tempted to say a couple of things about what we believe, how we come to form that belief, and whether or not our beliefs are justified and true. But all of that would be a relatively circuitous way of getting to the heart of one simple idea. To know love entails capturing it in some way – describing it, at least as a first step. And that I think (the value of metaphor aside) is impossible. I believe that love can only be articulated as a votive act – something done in fulfilment of a vow; not because love is in theory capable of being captured just not as it happens being something we can in practice describe. On the contrary: the contours and landscape of love are necessarily beyond the things we might say. But not beyond the things we might do. Whether or not this means we must draw a further distinction between knowledge and understanding is another question.

 

The first time another man hurt you, either physically or emotionally – what happened?

I don’t have any particular recollection of violence, either physical or emotional. I will however say that for me, men (or boys and adolescents at least) interact with one another in very physical, what can look like confrontational ways; hence the widespread permissibility, desirability and appeal of pain acquired through contact sport. This is entirely different in kind to something like malice, which I think ‘hurt’ requires. I’ve experienced plenty of the former but very little if any of the latter.

 

Who do you believe is responsible for your social conditioning? Is it your parents, the government, the church, Hollywood?

 

I’m inclined to accept that some of the ways I navigate the world will always be inherited or learned – that on a certain level at least I’m the set of values that I pick up and add to as I go along. It seems to me that this is based on one of two things. Either I’m propelled by a kind of habitual childlike deference, practically beneficial as that deference may be (the uncritical adoption of my ‘mother tongue’ or pride in my ‘father land’, for instance) or I’m driven by a basic and primitive insecurity with respect to survival (vanity as a way of not only checking my behaviour against an acceptable social standard but as a step towards regulating that behaviour so as to avoid criticism or attack, for example). Here I have a range of needs that society both reflects and serendipitously fulfils: “don’t be an outsider and here’s how to fit in”. But I also think it’s necessary to acknowledge the existence of the ‘critical’ will – the ground floor level of what it is to be a human being. It’s my view that social conditions cannot penetrate this far down. Neither learned, socially driven behaviours nor primitive desires as reflected in the world of other people can ever amount to who I am.

 

What is the definition of femininity for you?

 

I think that the picture of femininity at my disposal is excessively vague, comprising either too many distinctions or too few.

 

What empassions you?

 

The hope that there is something more – specifically something better – to come; the belief that humanity (rather than fate, divine providence, or nature) will one day express the fact.

 

 

What according to you is the biggest challenge we face as humans in the coming years?

 

I can’t help but feel that the biggest threat is the oldest threat: the naivety of human ambition; the unintended consequences of individually or collectively misguided exertions of the human will. I find it endlessly interesting that the greatest existential threat that we face is not anything like the cosmos or supernatural retribution but ourselves.

 

 

Who do you admire and why?

 

It’s not one person I admire but many: friends who are and have recently become parents. Rather than viewing their ability as belonging to the most basic of all human impulses, I’m increasingly inclined to think that it is – that they are – the most sophisticated and refined of all.

 

 

Define virility? Do you think it varies in other countries? Do you consider yourself virile?

 

I’ve always seen ‘virility’ as just another way of trying capture the essential features of “manliness”. I’ve probably said enough about that already. If I can add one thing: most if not all of the archetypes of masculinity I grew with define not only a way for living but also a way for death. These men are obsessed with death; with “earning” their death; with what comes (either as reward or as punishment) after death. For this reason, I’ve always seen virility as aiming, at least in part, at the right way to die. The idea endures in the field of popular entertainment, also. Think of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. On one level, Fleming paints a picture of a traumatised, maladjusted man obsessed with seemingly ridiculous notions of valour and prestige. On a more sympathetic level, he presents an idealised version of man – someone who from noble intent (“for Queen and country”) accepts not only the inevitability of death but who wants to die. The important point is that there is a good as well as a bad way to die, for Fleming. Look at the title of the latest instalment of the franchise (“No Time to Die”) as a case in point. That being said, my feeling is that this aspiration survives at either the margins of society or at the level of fantasy, only. I certainly don’t move in a world of men seeking to die heroically. I’m not sure that I even occupy a world in which men seek to live heroically. Perhaps the popular belief is that such an idea is antiquated, outdated, and naïve.

 

Do you believe yourself to be weak when faced with your sexual needs and desires?

 

I’m curious to know what ‘weak’ might mean in this case. Do we mean being ambivalent or unclear about what we want? Or do we mean something more along the lines of being unable or simply unwilling to do what’s required? Whatever the case, ‘yes’ is my unavoidable but nevertheless positive reply to your question: unavoidable in the sense all of us are subject to the kind of ongoing negotiation that’s just a basic feature of desire, whatever its shape – desire without at least some form of resistance (an obstacle or hurdle of one kind or another) would be stripped of its meaning. By positive, I mean to acknowledge that human beings without weakness would fail to be human beings. Whether my or anyone else’s needs and desires are moral, intellectual, aesthetic, practical, or biological is incidental, I think.

 

What is feminism for you?

 

Human beings acting in such a way as to confront the arbitrary, restricting, unjust and unfair (in this case male driven) challenges that women face.

 

How would you define your sexuality?

 

I’m not sure that I can. The kinds of things that interest me – the things I tend to think about – are at first glance ambiguous and unclear. That I’ve never tackled the question says something, perhaps.

 

Do you think other dimensions exist in the universe?

 

There are lots of ways of thinking formally about this idea. I think that here the longstanding interconnection of philosophy and physics needs to be acknowledged – the ways in which both positively contribute to the understanding of quantum field theory, quantum mechanics, and special and general relativity, for example. From a strictly personal and altogether less formal standpoint, I find it utterly incredible and impossible to believe that our current models (the ways in which we describe and make sense of existence, the world, reality, and so on) might be somehow up to scratch. That being said, I don’t have a particular commitment with respect to how other dimensions should look. Is it best to assume that the universe is simply bigger (possibly infinitely so) than I or anyone else can observe? Or should I focus on the possibility that the universe is fundamentally richer, more nuanced and complex than our philosophical / scientific models can ever possibly conceive? Should I focus on the nature, scope, and limit of scientific knowledge in general? Might this tell me something about the existence or otherwise of different dimensions?

 

Have you ever been in a situation where you could identify yourself as being misogynistic? What happened?

 

I hope not. For a start, I try to avoid strong generalisations. The idea that I might know you or simply form a “useful” assessment on the basis of something as restrictive and limited as your gender seems unhelpful, ridiculous even. More importantly, I can see absolutely no basis for the kind of attitude misogyny appears to entail: hatred or a kind of conduct-from-hate based on the fact that someone identifies as a woman can never be justified. Not only is it philosophically incoherent; it’s morally abhorrent. Whether one inherits that gender by way of their sex or chooses that gender in spite of their sex is irrelevant, I think. There is a wider question here as to whether or not hatred of other kinds is ever justified. For example, if we accept that anger is occasionally acceptable; that anger necessarily comes in degrees; and that hate is merely amplified anger, must we defend hate in some cases?

 

Define freedom?

 

I think that freedom is a function of imagination and that imagination is a product of the soul. Moreover, I think that the soul creates the world we live in. I’m currently trying to figure out what this means in detail. As a starting point, I’m thinking about the idea of ‘home’ which for the time being at least I see as any location (physical or psychological) which nurtures, guides, encourages, and supports us. More specifically, I’m trying to figure out what explains the sense of ‘belonging’ that our appeal to the idea of home involves. Is belonging driven by our underlying need for (and openness to) a pre-existing community which affirms and uplifts in important ways? Or might imagination, uninhibited and free provide the overarching explanation? I’m especially interested in the idea behind the Australian aboriginals’ song lines – what Bruce Chatwin once termed ‘dreaming tracks’ – which seem to have been understood not merely as metaphorical descriptions of the environment but as literal articulations of the land’s underlying possibility. I’m equally interested in the philosopher Martin Heidegger and his 1930s lecture series on the German Romantic era figure Friedrich Hölderlin. Without going into the detail, Heidegger believes that for Hölderlin home is not merely the place of our birth nor simply a kind of landscape which is familiar to us. Rather, home he suggests is (and here I have to paraphrase I’m afraid) a function of the human power of poeticising. I find this appeal to something like a poetic, imaginative sensibility particularly compelling. I’m inclined to believe that this all relates back to human nostalgia in general (the soul’s memory or attempt to recover its wings, as Plato saw it) as well as a kind of all pervasive grief in particular but again this is something I need to work out.

 

Do you believe in fidelity in a romantic relationship?

 

Yes, but I think we need to be careful how we choose to define fidelity here. Are we restricted to the more familiar bonds of monogamy? Or is there room for polyamory which to my mind relies on many of the same values as its traditional counterpart? Might we have something else in mind? For my part, I believe in consent and a willingness to uphold and respect whatever that consent involves. Ideally this would include (though needn’t be limited to) commitment, honesty, integrity, trust and faithfulness. I think that any principled view that involves these things and is exercised in and through an intimate relationship with another human being qualifies as romantic. I do believe in romantic intent be it nascent or unfulfilled but my feeling is that this differs from romance, as such. Romance is fidelity. Fidelity in this sense depends on another. We do of course use fidelity in a range of different contexts, some of which seem to challenge this notion – fidelity to an idea; to one’s values; to oneself, and so on. But these are not as I see it ways of thinking about fidelity and romance.

 

If you had 30 minutes to speak with your president what would you say to him or her?

 

I don’t think I’d have any particular interest in asking challenging policy related questions – though naturally they have a place. Neither would I want to make suggestions as to how his role should be fulfilled. I would however like to know something of the motivation; of the desire to run for the position of President. I assume that people do or pursue things that they consider to be of value. What is the value in the Presidency, as he sees it?

 

What is your biggest fear and your biggest dream?

 

That I might have to articulate and thereby confront the former; that one day I’ll be capable of describing the latter.