Said Scott Galloway ("author, entrepreneur and professor at New York University’s Stern Business School [who] has made a specialty of talking about the crisis of unattached, rudderless young men and helping them aspire to more").
Quoted in "Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness" by Christine Emba (WaPo). There's much more at the link, discussing many other people, including Jordan Peterson, so don't make assumptions about what's not in the article.Emba says that she "cringed in recognition" when Galloway said women don't want to "partner" with men who act more like women.
Me, I cringed when he said "garnering the skills and strength." Just get skills and strength. Learn skills and build strength. Don't be garnering them. Oh! He said it twice. "You will garner enough power...." No, you cannot garner power. Ask Jeb Bush, a man who would default to "garner" whenever possible. If you want power, get it, seize it, build it.
Are these men who are motivated by sex trying to garner sex? No one ever says "garner sex," but Galloway speaks of garnering skills, strength, power, influence, and kindness all with the objective of having sex — because when he speaks of sex, it's instinctively obvious that it would be silly to say "garnering sex." It would be fussy and weak. It's fussy and weak all those other times you used it. And don't wear shorts either. You'll look like an oversized boy.
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Shorter Althouse: real men don't garner. Listen up, boys!
Of course, embracing attributes of masculinity is also dangerous, as it might refute parts of feminism and challenge the prog preference for leaving subjects unprotected. All very toxic.
get shot up to think they’re saving their buddies
That’s very odd phrasing—they don’t do it to think they’re saving their buddies, they do it to save their buddies. They may be wrong, but they are not motivated by the desire to think something, they are motivated by the desire to do something. Otherwise, I agree with the sentiments.
Emba says that she "cringed in recognition"
“Male feminist” is a mating strategy and the men who employ it tend to be sleazy opportunists. Women want real men, even if they don’t want to admit it.
Tags: garner
Tags: garner
Garner. Althouse's eternal jihad against a bothersome word continues.
It is ironic that an author who is arguing that other men should be strong and forthright, courageous and skillful, should default so often to a word much more associated with the weasel than the warrior.
I think that what women want is men who are foursquare behind abortion rights because they want zero responsibility for any pregnancy that their constant need for casual sex, uninterrupted by any birth control related delays, may cause.
None of that made any sense, if I can be manly and say so.
>Ann Althouse said...
"Are these men who are motivated by sex trying to garner sex? No one ever says 'garner sex,' but Galloway speaks of garnering skills, strength, power, influence, and kindness all with the objective of having sex — because when he speaks of sex, it's instinctively obvious that it would silly to say 'garner sex.'"<
Silly indeed, because using it with the word "sex" - unlike with "skills, strength, etc" - would not be in congruence with the definition of the word "garner" (ie., to gather and accumulate). A definition which you, in your bizarre stubborn affectation re the word, persist in refusing to acknowledge.
I tried to read this. I made a couple efforts to get around the paywall and eventually succeeded. It was hard reading; she is so obtuse and so ignorant of that fact! I read through, or into, her anecdote about attending a Jordan Peterson talk. And then I clicked off. There was no point in reading further, people with her prejudices are unable to see clearly.
If you define everything to the political and cultural right of your pet assumptions as "weird," you are forced to the conclusion that men have been getting "weird." She described so many reasons for it and never once made a connection from what she described, to the results she sees in men.
Just sad. She is clearly among the first who will soon be last.
I think Jordan Peterson covered all this quite well enough and quite a while back. And he wasn't the first: "Iron John" was a thing in, IIRC, the Eighties.
Why should I want to listen to some woman 'splain all this? Frankly it's women like her who are the problem; who needed to "problematize" the sex/gender/power/role BS so that males could kowtow seeking forgiveness for that damnable XY mark of the beast, and line up for a book reading by another author of another help-for-the-helpless manual.
They succeeded too well and now things are crashing hard. Look at higher education where the "top" schools are running about 2:1 women:men. And of those men, many are now pretty well denatured, or so confused and browbeaten that they're hardly worth pursuing as potential mates. Result: hypergamy and a lot of lonely women in their thirties with a condo full of cats.
/rant
"Emba says that she "cringed in recognition" when Galloway said women don't want to "partner" with men who act more like women."
Interesting way to put it. It sounds as if she is ashamed of the fact that she is not attracted to emasculated men. Presumably, that is because feminism has taught her that she should want men to be emasculated. It may even be that she does want men to be emasculated. But she still doesn't find them attractive.
It's OK, Hon. Good feminists don't want emasculated men. Good feminists want men emasculated. Not the same thing at all.
You've trained me well. Those garners leapt off the screen and clobbered me.
Emba says that she "cringed in recognition" when Galloway said women don't want to "partner" with men who act more like women.
It sounds like she's discussing square dancing.
And even some women who say that — they don’t want to have sex with those guys.
Zuck. He's talking about Zuck.
Elon has been having plenty of sex.
Article by Christine Emba...
To paraphrase Bill Burr...
"It's like me writing a book called 'The Third Trimester and What to Expect'. Ladies you're going to feel a pressure..."
The piece was alright. The fundemental misunderstanding of Jordan Peterson continues in there, but the author does acknowledge that Peterson's advice works for rudderless young men.
The "clean your room" bit from Peterson comes from his work as a therapist. His advice to a person with depression is to take control of a small part of their life. I'll see if I can find the video.
"The Greek ideal in the Homeric period was found in the man of action and the man of wisdom. The man of action -- the warrior -- was typified by Achilles, whose virtues were bravery and reverence. The man of wisdom -- the reasoner -- was typified by Odysseus, whose virtues were prudence and temperance. . . .In order that good judgment be exercised, it was necessary that the desires and passions be brought under control. This control of the appetites by reason is the temperance or whole mindedness of the man of wisdom; it is the balance or harmony in thought that corresponds to the balance in action demanded by their ideal of reverence."
Mackie, R. Andrew, Dr. Paul Monroe on Greek Ideal of Liberal Education. The Phi Delta Kappan, Nov., 1937, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Nov., 1937), pp. 88-91.
"Protecting others" is a remarkably good goal, and yes, there are many possible applications.
"And don't wear shorts either. You'll look like an oversized boy."
The kind of directive Jordan Peterson could make. Maybe Althouse can furrow her brow like he does. But he has an interesting accent.
From article:
"“When I talk to my friends, I can literally count on one hand the number of friends I have who have a good relationship with their dad and actually have learned things from him,” said Reynolds, the Ivy League grad student, mulling the reasons students were turning to him for advice. “Part of the thing is that that’s just an ongoing societal problem.”
Many of the young men I talked to for this essay told me they had troubled relationships with their fathers, or no father figure in their lives at all. The data bears this out: Since 1960, the percentage of boys living apart from their biological fathers has nearly doubled, from 17 percent to 32 percent.
As Reeves told me: “If you’re growing up in a single-parent household, and you go to a typical public school and typical medical system, there’s a decent chance that you will not encounter a male figure of authority until middle school or later. Not your doctor, not your teachers. No one else around you. What does that feel like?”
Men are nature's playthings.
"I think that what women want is men who are foursquare behind abortion rights because they want zero responsibility for any pregnancy that their constant need for casual sex, uninterrupted by any birth control related delays, may cause."
I think that what men want is women who are foursquare behind abortion rights because they want zero responsibility for any pregnancy that their constant need for casual sex, uninterrupted by any birth control related delays, may cause.
FIFY
I agree that sex fits more awkwardly into the metaphor in the word “garner” — which is piling up grain in a storage unit, as I’ve explained more than once, though Ice Nine didn’t bother to check — than does power or skill or kindness. But none of those things fit well and the word should be saved for things that are analogous to grain storage. It is embarrassing to use it to pose as smarter than other people.
I was just listening to Jordan Peterson's podcast discussion with Andrew Doyle, where Peterson supposed that perhaps homosexuality persists in the gene pool because the more a man finds balance between masculinity and femininity, the more attractive he will be to females.
Is this xx vs xy or nature vs nurture?
In fact, it's some of each with everyone being a little more of one and a little less of the other.
My 'man-list' is shorter.
Get a job. Work. Be independent.
If you like, get married and raise a family.
Learn to use tools and play an instrument.
Get familiar with the outdoors.
Have one good suit.
If you have a skill, share the knowledge.
Know at least three funny stories.
Always say please and thank you.
And some other stuff.
Thank you.
"Real men protect other people"
Napoleon needs a few Boxers.
Why in the world would any male read the WaPoo to learn about masculinity?
Masculinity isn't directed at women, is the analysis problem. It's directed at flying airplanes, STEM jobs, etc. Things that are escapes from women, in short.
"Odysseus, whose virtues were prudence and temperance. . "
Yeah, the guy who slaughtered the suitors of Penelope. Who tempted fate between Scylla and Charybdis.
No action there. No risk taking, either.
If my husband read Althouse, I could ask him if he was up for some garnering.
I wonder if it's true that men think about sex more than women. I've known quite a number of women who seem at least as occupied by it as a typical man.
Do women/girls, when they pass a man/boy, evaluate silently whether he is or isn't someone they'd like to get naked with? Men do. Presumably that's why we're assumed to think about sex more.
How you can cover this and not have a Peterson tag is a mystery.
Althouse>I agree that sex fits more awkwardly into the metaphor in the word “garner”<
Well, OK, this is fun.
You're not agreeing with me because, on the contrary, I stated that it didn't work at all with "sex." Unless you could tell us how one gathers and accumulates sex. That is something everyone certainly could use for those horny long dry spells.
> — which is piling up grain in a storage unit, as I’ve explained more than once, though Ice Nine didn’t bother to check "garner" — than does power or skill or kindness. But none of those things fit well and the word should be saved for things that are analogous to grain storage.
Wrong - I've seen your strained "explanatory"assertions on the word many times. Those include your stretched notion that it might be used as metaphor or analogy for piling up grain in a storage unit (and sure, why not that too) rather than a word with precise and easily understandable definitions that go well beyond that and to which it is correctly much more commonly applied. Accumulating grain in storage is hardly the primary definition of the word (I can feel the OED reference coming already). It is merely one of them in a few of many dictionaries.
>It is embarrassing to use it to pose as smarter than other people.<
Using a simple word like "garner" in its precise and most common definition is posing as smarter than other people? Who knew? You're back to your "garner" = "get" misapprehension.
"No one ever says 'garner sex'". I might try that on my wife tonight. "Hey baby, would you like to garner sex? No, no, I mean with me."
"It sounds as if she is ashamed of the fact that she is not attracted to emasculated men."
What is an "emasculated man?" What is a "masculine man?" Is this simply a modern way of describing, respectively, "the man of wisdom" and the "man of action" as perceived by the Greeks, (see above)? If so, is a "man of wisdom" somehow lesser than a "man of action," (as the term "emasculated" certainly suggests)? Also if so, why would the "man of wisdom" be lesser than a "man of action?" Or do the terms "masculine" and "emasculated" describe different kind of men than the Greeks had in mind?
Collecting grain is the primary meaning of garner. But it has taken on a secondary meaning of obtaining valuable things through merit. You can't garner the holy grail, but you can garner plaudits. Or plums, I suppose.
"If you see me coming and you’re standing there
Wave your handkerchief in the air
I ain’t dead yet, my bell still rings
I keep my fingers crossed like the early Roman Kings"
Neurotic, medicated, unhappy young women and unattached, rudderless disengaged young men.
Sort of seems like we, as a society, are failing our young people.
When I read this I think of James Garner, the actor. Was he really the garnor? Certainly not the garnee.
Garners and men wearing shorts: an Althouse twofer! Although her banging on about both suggested a remedy for the boyish look of men wearing shorts: sock garters. A 50s retro look that's dying to make a comeback. Maybe Brandon could lead the way.
A man should garner skills into a talent stack, as Scott Adams has advocated.
Then when the feminists and other come to dig and burn, burn and dig to root out that toxic masculinity. The men can just smile and wave, sittin' there on the stack of talents.
Garner?
The phrase “Full stop” does it for me.
"Feminism has done so much for women! Let us do the same to men. I mean 'for men.'"
While you continue to "moderate" all day, we are off to see "The Sound of Freedom."
Have a nice day.
"Men are more impulsive. Men will run out into a field and get shot up to think they’re saving their buddies..."
sez Scott Galloway, a man who thinks he's more valuable than his friends. Good advice to his (theoretical) friends: keep a weather eye on Mr. Galloway the next time you're having dinner together, if he should suddenly leave the room, best duck and cover.
Headless courage is the noblest aspect of mankind, but Galloway doesn't get it. They say sociopaths are more common than we suppose, hiding their selfish nature skillfully behind a false face of sympathy. Looks like Galloway has let his mask slip.
Liberals are more likely to be sociopaths. They speak loudly of unselfish obligations, but mostly they just talk the talk, the walk they'd rather you walk by being taxed to fund their favorite cause. Statistics bear this out. Conservatives consistently give a greater share of their income to charity than do liberals, and they seldom take the deduction, either.
gar·ner VERB
gather or collect (something, especially information or approval): "the police struggled to garner sufficient evidence"
SIMILAR: gather, collect, accumulate, amass, assemble, store
NOUN (ARCHAIC)
a storehouse; a granary.
Note - the references implying storage are last in usage, the word has evolved.
"Garner. Althouse's eternal jihad against a bothersome word continues."
One wonders how many examples she has thus far garnered.
Owen said...
Why should I want to listen to some woman 'splain all this? Frankly it's women like her who are the problem; who needed to "problematize" the sex/gender/power/role BS so that males could kowtow seeking forgiveness for that damnable XY mark of the beast, and line up for a book reading by another author of another help-for-the-helpless manual.
It is the closest you will ever get to seeing a modern progressive woman ever admit that she and all her modern progressive sisters have royally fucked up relations between the sexes
My model for masculinity is Fred Rogers. He blended strength and gentleness, a positive self-regard and devotion to the well-being of others. He knew his gifts and used them.
He didn't wear shorts, to my knowledge. There was the time he rolled up his trouser legs in the wading pool scene, but that was a different thing.
I very much recommend the work of Dr. Tania Reynolds of the Univ of New Mexico about "Intrasexual competition." I heard her on a podcast that is still up over at Razib's.
I agree about "garner," that such a weak word should have come to apply to strong actions is just wrong. But linguistic fashions come to us with inexorable strength, it seems. You are right to fight these many rearguard actions, but remember - they are rearguard actions.
Blogger Jupiter said...
It's OK, Hon. Good feminists don't want emasculated men. Good feminists want men emasculated. Not the same thing at all.
Great line. I mean, really very good indeed.
Ha! Your last two paragraphs are pretty much verbatim the parody I was going to write when I saw the word "garner." Right down to the shorts.
You were way ahead of me.
He was doing well, though, up until the garner part.
I agree wholeheartedly with Ice Nine. Althouse, this is getting remarkably like a tic. Which is endearing in a crotchety oldster, but then you do not "present" as a crotchety oldster.
What would you say bees (or hummingbirds, for that matter) do with nectar? Do they just "get" it? "What is more gentle than a wind in summer? / What is more soothing than the pretty hummer / That stays one moment in an open flower / And buzzes cheerily from to bower to bower?" Is the "hummer" "getting" nectar? I mean, it's satisfactorily short and echt-Anglo-Saxon, but if you have a word that specifically suggests going from place to place and picking up stuff, why on earth not use it? I look at the actual hummingbirds around here, and can't really imagine them "getting" anything.
Wait a minute... are you saying men and women are different?
This is deep lizard brain stuff.
Its science. Anthropology. Yes there are exceptions. Because nature is a bell curve.
Real men try to protect other people? You mean like that former marine on the New York subway who was charged with manslaughter for stopping a deranged guy from threatening a subway car full of trapped innocents?
Michael K said...
"Why in the world would any male read the WaPoo to learn about masculinity?"
Some people need to be told how to behave. The WaPo,(our nations high school newspaper of record) tells the lefty losers when it's time to ask for their balls back.
Get, gather, and collect are all fine words. Garner doesn't add anything to our useful vocabulary.
Where's the "civility bullshit" tag?
Perhaps an "uncivility bullshit" tag would be more appropriate. It's all so confusing.
If I take the posting about the re-positioning of the Biden brand and combine it with this posting where we're edging up to the idea that men need to be a bit of a dick in order to survive, thrive and further the species, we're looking at a reverse, triple-double backflip hypocrisy. Throw in the countless articles about how Twiter is a mean place, but Threads is placid and civilized and you have a giant mess that indicates an inability to think clearly about a number of intersecting issues. That scent in the air is desperation with a hint of panic.
Conflicting signals create society-wide stress.
One might conclude that our "thought leaders" (Dana Bash being a prime example) are desperately flailing to keep this whole herd of ideological cats in line.
Joe Biden is a doddering puppet. Bash says, however, that his refusal to acknowledge his grandkid runs counter to Old Yeller's "brand." Setting aside the fact that she's speaking in marketing terms (alarming enough), she's expecting us to believe that everyone else believes (or has been instructed to do so by Biden's marketing team, AKA, the legacy media) that ol' Uncle Joe is a kindly old man.
He's a dick and always has been. He is no doubt suffering from congestive heart failure and is lashing out as a result. Instead of praising such behavior, we should be hearing discussions about "fingers" on "buttons" and speculation as to his proximity to the "nuclear football." A man who yells at his staff is a man who, were he a member of another party, would be declared a danger to world peace, if not civilization itself. Instead, we're concerned about his marketing, as if he were a can of Bud Light.
tim in vermont,
You picked the wrong language for complaining about the abundance of synonyms!
"It sounds as if she is ashamed of the fact that she is not attracted to emasculated men."
Robert Cook said...
"What is an 'emasculated man?' What is a 'masculine man?' Is this simply a modern way of describing, respectively, 'the man of wisdom' and the 'man of action' as perceived by the Greeks..."
Don't forget a 'Real Man of Genius'. Those are a very important archetype, too.
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