, Research Paper
Being a male in America, the center of Western culture, is not by any means easy.
We’re plagued by stereotypes and we fight among ourselves. We grow up programmed to act a
certain way, talk a certain way, and to do certain things. Unfortunately, this mental
conditioning is not productive, nor is it healthy. And one of the major contributors to this
problem is our ‘scientific’ system of education. As C. S. Lewis stated in one of his books called
The Abolition of Man, the motives of scientific education are questionable because it appears
that “…the ‘trousered ape’ and the ‘urban blockhead’ may be precisely the kind of man they
really wish to produce.” It this ‘trousered ape’ that we are seeing now in our schools. But, it is
more than that. Scientific education allows all types of bullying and brutality (physical and
verbal) to go on, simply because it refuses to wield the weapons that will crush them. The
reader may wish to know what these magical weapons are, so I will attempt to explain. The
weapons with to combat this epidemic of abuse are morals. Scientific education teaches it’s
pupils that “Truth is relative; everyone has there own truth.” and “Right is whatever is right for
you.” When you teach people this from the crib, is it then really so difficult to see why there
are wars on crime and drugs?
Additionally, the male mind is conditioned to think that a man cannot feel emotion, that
men should not be thoughtful or caring, and that a man cannot express a feeling of agape love
for another man, because if he does he is by default homosexual. Western culture promotes
the idea that a man must lust after women, and any man who doesn’t must be gay. What ever
happened to the apostle Paul who said that, “…It is good to remain as I [unmarried], but if they
cannot contain themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.” (1Corithians
7:8,9) And again, the Western man is expected to revel in all things that are violent, brutally
physical, and competitive, and yet he is to shun all things that require a gentler spirit, such as
drama, art, poetry, and literature.
Another plague to the male in America is the sever homophobia that runs deep in our
society. Anything that a boy might do that doesn’t fit into the strict and rigid ‘boy-code’ leaves
him to be branded as a ‘fag’ by his peers. And, over time, the emotional abuse to the sensitive
boy leads one of two ways. The Type A product represses his anger and humiliation and
dreams of revenge upon those that tortured him (there are even a couple of these in our class);
whereas, the Type B product copes by retreating into a world of fantasy, and he will attempt to
lose himself in tales of ancient civilizations and future times. (Coincidentally, I am a Type B
person.)
To be a boy in America is hard, and boys only make it harder on each other. If only every guy
in our culture could be made to understand that, then perhaps boys in our society could
actually grow up to be the kind of men that are able to understand why their wives get upset
when they forget things like anniversaries, or the kind of fathers that can actually be a father
figure to their children.