Althouse: Mars and masculinity.

December 10, 2020

Mars and masculinity.

Men will literally spend two decades trying to colonize mars instead of just going to therapy
— Daniel Tenreiro (@TenreiroDaniel) December 10, 2020

70 comments:

Big Mike said...: You have lived with Meade how long? And you still don't understand manly men?

I hope I haven't misjudged him.; 12/10/20, 4:57 PM
rhhardin said...: Male satisfaction in figuring out how things work. Women are more interested in therapy, somebody else interested in their feelings.; 12/10/20, 4:59 PM
harrogate said...: "Big Mike" you're a manly man?; 12/10/20, 4:59 PM
Kate said...: One of the best qualities about men is that they would colonize Mars. I hope this tweet is a failed quip and not an honest opinion.; 12/10/20, 5:03 PM
Kai Akker said...: He doesn't know his quip failed.

Hope he keeps his day job.; 12/10/20, 5:05 PM
jrapdx said...: Goes to show little understanding of men, Mars or therapy.

A couple of decades of study could have a salutary effect on such knowledge deficiency. Depending of course on how diligently the student studies.; 12/10/20, 5:05 PM
Gospace said...: Real soyboy tweeting his opinion there.

Real men don’t go to therapy- being a real man is satisfying.; 12/10/20, 5:06 PM
Birkel said...: In which harrogate demonstrates shim's inability to grok men or manliness.; 12/10/20, 5:07 PM
D.D. Driver said...: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

History will thank the crazies that opted out of therapy.; 12/10/20, 5:07 PM
n.n said...: Go West... to Mars, young man, and be faithful. It's a traditional notion.; 12/10/20, 5:08 PM
madAsHell said...: get laid much??; 12/10/20, 5:10 PM
Michael K said...: Blogger ate that one. My answer is that it sounds reasonable to me.

Who else has read "Admiral of the Ocean Sea?"; 12/10/20, 5:11 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: People will literally spend years of time and all of their intellectual capital making sexist claims instead of just going to therapy.; 12/10/20, 5:16 PM
mandrewa said...: Yes.

Well, for those manly men, who haven't already seen this, that calls for a link to this:

Scott Manley: SpaceX's Biggest Starship Flight Is A Spectacular Success Even After Crash Landing

And in particular I like the part starting at 7:47 into the video where one gets some sense of what it would be like to have a twelve-story tall building falling down on you sideways from straight overhead.

Although I'm sure that doesn't quite convey what it would actually feel like if one where there.; 12/10/20, 5:17 PM
Jarby said...: If all men went to therapy instead of inventing new things or going on dangerous voyages, where would we be as a society?; 12/10/20, 5:19 PM
jrapdx said...: Some people vastly misunderstand "therapy", or more accurately "therapies".

Put it this way, if an activity IS "therapy" the goal is to enable people to reach their potentials, exactly the opposite of stifling themselves.

How convenient to belittle or misappropriate things one knows little or nothing about. IMO such a dishonest and intellectually shabby practice.; 12/10/20, 5:24 PM
harrogate said...: Birkel invokes Heinlein. Enough said.

GoSpace, are you a manly man?; 12/10/20, 5:25 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Ok, so I go to therapy, just to make her happy, and the therapist says

“Your problem stems from a lack of adventure and accomplishment—

...have you ever considered taking up interplanetary exploration?”; 12/10/20, 5:29 PM
jrapdx said...: @Ingachuck...

Yup, that's what genuine therapy is about.; 12/10/20, 5:35 PM
rehajm said...: I've seen people just back from Antarctica. I'll let the manly men go colonize Mars...; 12/10/20, 5:42 PM
gadfly said...: Meanwhile the Mars-American relationship gets clearer:

Like all humans, my light-sensing organs nearly popped out of their orbits when I heard that a retired Israeli military commander had given an interview claiming that space aliens made contact with Earth’s leaders years ago. According to Haim Eshed, who served as the head of Israel’s space security program for three decades, representatives of the “Galactic Federation” traveled to our solar system to conduct research into the “fabric of the universe,” and, with the help of a local political faction known as the United States of America, have constructed an underground base on Helios IV, which we humans call Mars. As a respected human journalist, I think I speak for our entire species of only-recently-sentient bipeds when I say, “That’s ridiculous! Haim Eshed’s carbon-based neurological organ is simply malfunctioning as he nears the end of his pitifully short biological life cycle, and there is absolutely no reason to look into his story any further.”

Eshed’s claims just don’t add up. Even a nonspacefaring species like us should be able to understand that research into the fabric of the universe can be conducted anywhere—that’s why they call it the universe! There would be no need for these supposed universe-fabric researchers to pay any attention to our insignificant little planet or its plentiful reserves of nitrogen and cobalt, much less establish diplomatic relations with a lesser species. As for Eshed’s so-called Galactic Federation, how likely is it that an alien government would have a structure that humans like you or me would be able to understand? It just doesn’t seem plausible that other species in our galaxy would form a government that so closely resembles the one featured on our beloved audiovisual program Star Trek, which terrestrial electromagnetic broadcast stations have been ceaselessly beaming out into the universe at high volume for more than 0.000000216 cosmic years. Is he suggesting these “aliens” are lying about their form of governance to earn our trust and conceal some darker purpose? Surely he doesn’t believe that aliens could outsmart humans or their brilliant leaders? Eshed’s story has the kind of inconsistencies that produce laughter in humans who hear it!; 12/10/20, 5:42 PM
MarkW said...: No interest in therapy or going to Mars. We know enough about Mars by this point to know that being a colonist there would be MUCH worse than a colonist in Antarctica (at least you can breath the atmosphere, see wildlife, and there's plenty of water). And you can get home in a couple of days instead of a couple of years. So go colonize Antarctica.

BTW, can you imagine being a second-generation Mars colonist? Stuck on a frozen, arid, airless planet your whole life while seeing all the beautiful images and videos of our lush Earth? Oy--talk about teenage angst. Face it, there's just no there on Mars. That said, it's way better to have billionaires spending their own money trying to get to Mars than NASA spending our tax dollars. So have at it guys! It's a dead end but it'll be entertaining watching them try to do it.; 12/10/20, 5:44 PM
harrogate said...: You know who’s super manly? rhhardin. That’s the stipulated standard here.; 12/10/20, 5:47 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Spoken by a man whose tiny model rocket sputtered out sadly on its little launching pad.; 12/10/20, 5:53 PM
Barry Dauphin said...: But men are from Mars...; 12/10/20, 5:59 PM
Big Mike said...: @harrogate, ask my wife.; 12/10/20, 6:12 PM
Michael K said...: Mars colonization will not be easy but it will happen. Not with Democrats in charge but maybe when the Chinese take over.; 12/10/20, 6:13 PM
Hey Skipper said...: Does a drill sergeant make a good therapist?

(Barry Dauphin wins the thread.); 12/10/20, 6:22 PM
Anonymous said...: For Christ’s sake read some Camille Paglia, you insect.; 12/10/20, 6:23 PM
Howard said...: It'll take thousands of SpaceX Soy Bois and a handful of Tom Gyrlz to get to Mars. Libtards leading the way while you "manly" men's lubricate your peashooters in the basement.; 12/10/20, 6:26 PM
JPS said...: I'm having a little trouble keeping up these days. Are women absolutely the equals of men, with the exact same distribution of interests, and therefore differential representation proves discrimination?

Or are men more likely to want to go to Mars; or to want to see someone else set foot on Mars even if we know we won't be the ones?

It hadn't occurred to me that this was a masculinity issue until I saw that tweet, and harrogate asking various people whether they're manly men.; 12/10/20, 6:30 PM
Michael K said...: Blogger Howard said...
It'll take thousands of SpaceX Soy Bois and a handful of Tom Gyrlz to get to Mars. Libtards leading the way while you "manly" men's lubricate your peashooters in the basement.

Howard is making his list of girly fighter pilots in WWII who were aces.

I don't know if Howard, with his extensive Marine background, knows that 25% of WWII pilots got 75% of kills.; 12/10/20, 6:33 PM
Joe Smith said...: "Or are men more likely to want to go to Mars; or to want to see someone else set foot on Mars even if we know we won't be the ones?"

I would bet a lot of money that if NASA succeeded in landing people on Mars, the first person to set foot on the surface would be either black, female, LGBTQ, or all of the above.

You know I'm right.; 12/10/20, 6:37 PM
Mary Beth said...: I would rather go to Mars than go to therapy. I understand the tweet was supposed to be an insult, I just don't understand why anyone thinks that is an insult.; 12/10/20, 6:45 PM
Birkel said...: harrogate is ready to burn shim some books.
Who else makes your book burning cut?; 12/10/20, 6:51 PM
Rick.T. said...: "...25% of WWII pilots got 75% of kills."
-----------------------
Very close to the 80/20 rule of thumb. Interesting.; 12/10/20, 6:54 PM
Mikey NTH said...: Let's see:

(1) Achieve immortal greatness.
(2) Go to therapy.

Tough choice.; 12/10/20, 6:55 PM
Mikey NTH said...: Michael K said...
Blogger ate that one. My answer is that it sounds reasonable to me.

Who else has read "Admiral of the Ocean Sea?"

I have. Have you read Morison's "Samuel De Champlain"?; 12/10/20, 6:58 PM
Rusty said...: We're guys. We like challenges. it's, like, our thing.; 12/10/20, 6:59 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Who else has read “Admiral of the Ocean Sea?”

I haven't read that (pending…), but have read what historian Samuel Eliot Morison — a powerful sailor in his own right, who followed Columbus's route(s) in his own sailing ship — writes in his intriguing 2-volume European Discovery of America of the value and significance of the great mariner's discoveries.

Though it was the Norse Vikings who first found a way across the ocean (by island-hopping the far-northern Atlantic), Columbus was the superb navigator who opened up the sea-road across the oceans so thoroughly that it was never possible for that connection to be mislaid again. (Unlike the case with the Vikings, whose prior discovery a half millennium before had been largely forgotten.)

As Samuel Eliot Morison writes: [quoting…]

A glance at a map of the Caribbean may remind you of what he accomplished: discovery of the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola on the First Voyage; discovery of the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the south coast of Cuba on the Second, as well as founding a permanent European colony; discovery of Trinidad and the Spanish Main, on his Third; and on the Fourth Voyage, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia.

No navigator in history, not even Magellan, discovered so much territory hitherto unknown to Europeans. None other so effectively translated his north-south experience under the Portuguese flag to the first east-west voyage, across the Atlantic. None other started so many things from which stem the history of the United States, of Canada, and of a score of American republics.

And do not forget that sailing west to the Orient [the “East”] was his idea, pursued relentlessly for six years before he had the means to try it. As a popular jingle of the 400th anniversary put it:

‘What if wise men as far back as Ptolemy
Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, “Come along, follow me,
Sail to the West and the East will be found.”’

Columbus had his faults, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great. These were an unbreakable faith in God and his own destiny as the bearer of the Word to lands beyond the seas; an indomitable will and stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty, and ridicule.

But there was no flaw, no dark side to the most outstanding and essential of all his qualities — seamanship. As a master mariner and navigator, no one in the generation prior to Magellan could touch Columbus. Never was a title more justly bestowed than the one which he most jealously guarded — _Almirante del Mar Oceano_ — Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

[/unQuote]
____
(Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: the Southern Voyages: AD 1492-1616, 1974, Oxford University Press, p. 267; more generally about Columbus: pp. 3-161.

Also, with regard to the Vikings' own American discovery, see Samuel Eliot Morison's The European Discovery of America: the Northern Voyages: AD 500-1600, 1971, Oxford University Press; pp. 32-80.); 12/10/20, 7:00 PM
Narr said...: I would go to Mars as therapy, if advised by Science, if I was a lot younger.

Narr
Manly as all getout; 12/10/20, 7:00 PM
mockturtle said...: Pushing the envelope. Brings to mind, does it not, the late, great Chuck Yeager who passed only a few days ago?

While I think many of the discoveries and inventions of men will in time come back to bite us in the butt, I applaud their adventuresome spirit. What's over the next mountain? What's on the nearest planet? Under the depths of the sea? We women must sometimes serve as a counterweight to the envelope pushing and remind men that nature in its original form is often worth keeping intact. Genetic engineering is, IMO, a slippery and very dangerous slope from which we may never recover.; 12/10/20, 7:07 PM
Michael K said...: Columbus had his faults, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great. These were an unbreakable faith in God and his own destiny as the bearer of the Word to lands beyond the seas; an indomitable will and stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty, and ridicule.

Good for you., He also ended up in prison at one time. I had a discussion with Farmer the other day about individualism. Columbus was one example. Most examples are not Politically Correct anymore. I know I'm not.; 12/10/20, 7:36 PM
Michael K said...: I have. Have you read Morison's "Samuel De Champlain"?

No, I missed that one. I assume it is about the exploration of the midwest. It goes on the to read stack.; 12/10/20, 7:39 PM
Greg The Class Traitor said...: Daniel Tenreiro is not really a male, and desperately need good therapy.

Which in the modern screwed up age he won't get; 12/10/20, 7:49 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Blogger Rick.T. said...

"...25% of WWII pilots got 75% of kills."
-----------------------
Very close to the 80/20 rule of thumb. Interesting.

12/10/20, 6:54 PM
The pareto distribution looks like magic until you realize it is part of a sine curve. We pay attention to the part where there is an 80/20 distribution, and ignore the rest. The 80/20 part is where the action is.; 12/10/20, 7:49 PM
mandrewa said...: Who else has read "Admiral of the Ocean Sea?"

I have. But it has been a while. And I don't remember most of it. But as I recall it was a fascinating and enjoyable book.

And as I recall it doesn't stop from exploring Christopher Columbus's flaws. Now in the wrong hands that will be used to make him look like a monster. But the truth is that he was a larger than life figure who did absolutely amazing things.

The lesson I take from it, the same lesson I see in many other contexts, is that real people always have flaws.; 12/10/20, 7:50 PM
Michael McNeil said...: We know enough about Mars by this point to know that being a colonist there would be MUCH worse than a colonist in Antarctica (at least you can breath[e] the atmosphere, see wildlife, and there's plenty of water).

The fact is that there is no “wildlife” in or on Antarctica — beyond the narrowest coastal margin (a few miles inland where a few mummified bodies of the occasional misdirected wandering seal can yet be found). Further inland than that: there's nothing but ice and snow. That's the thing about Antarctica — it's a continent possessing basically no life, and therefore no food for life.

What killed early explorers such as the (entire) Scott expedition? It wasn't really the continent's extreme cold, but rather the plain, hard fact that there's nothing to eat there for literally thousands of miles. The Scott expedition didn't freeze to death, the men of the party starved — or rather, froze in the end because there was no more food-sustenance available that would allow them to even just continue to walk on (they were very close to a food depot they'd earlier stashed) — much less fight off the cold.

The foregoing being the case, there's also effectively no water in Antarctica. To transmute the ever-present ice into liquid water (humans must have the latter to make biological use of it) requires energy — lots of energy — while the universal dearth of food down there means energy is the one thing you really don't have available to spend.; 12/10/20, 7:53 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: Or spend two decades tweeting about how ridiculous other men are rather than going to therapy.; 12/10/20, 7:58 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Years ago I looked into the Mars vs Antarctica thing.
At that time transportation costs to McMurdo were about $10/kilo (this was the 1990s).
These days Musk teases his acolytes with hints of $1,000/kilo to LOE, Mars three or four times as much, with a 20 month delivery time.; 12/10/20, 8:03 PM
Known Unknown said...: Talk about losing the plot.; 12/10/20, 8:38 PM
Narr said...: I always feel bad that I haven't read Admiral Morison, but not even I can read everything.

Narr
I managed Graves's Isles of Unwisdom, though; 12/10/20, 8:46 PM
The Godfather said...: "Columbus will literally spend two decades trying to reach the Orient by sailing west across the Atlantic, and exploring the new world that he discovered as a result, instead of just going to therapy." Fra Daniel Tenreiro (an obscure early 16th Century cleric).

Fortunately for world history, therapy hadn't been invented in 1492.; 12/10/20, 9:12 PM
Readering said...: I would support more exploration of the ocean floors first.; 12/10/20, 9:34 PM
Skippy Tisdale said...: rehajm said...
I've seen people just back from Antarctica. I'll let the manly men go colonize Mars...

The best man at my wedding spent 10 seasons in Antarctica include one where we wintered over at the South Pole, so I'm curious what you mean with this comment. BTW, they grow pot down at the South Pole or at least they used to..; 12/10/20, 9:36 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Real men don’t go to therapy- being a real man is satisfying."

Hmmm...tell that to the many "real men" suffering from anxiety and emotional dysfunction and distress, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken relationships, etc., and who, in some cases, become suicides.

This cohort includes a lot of former soldiers.; 12/10/20, 10:31 PM
Biff said...: Choose your therapy:

Two decades of couch time with a significant chance of inconclusive results, or

Two decades building the basis for an interplanetary civilization.; 12/11/20, 12:13 AM
Anonymous said...: Weird to dismiss the drive to accomplish great things as compensation for some inadequacies. Maybe that's a particularly female thing to do? "He's got a big rocket so he's trying to compensate for something." Instead of belittling people who are trying to accomplish big things, why not try to accomplish something amazing yourself?

And the tweet is oblivious to some studies in mental health that suggest it's way better to focus on your strengths than to spend all your time trying to fix your weaknesses. If a psychiatrist spends all his time focusing on his patient's negatives, he's just going to get his patient to feel like shit. I think that's why so many people avoid therapy.

Better to focus on your positives. If you're bad at something, all you're going to do if you focus on improving your F work is bring it up to C mediocrity. Much better to work on your A game and turn it into A+ material.

That's how excellence (and space flight) happens.

(To put it another way, if you fix Adrian Monk, he will no longer be able to solve crimes. His negatives are the flip side of his amazing abilities. Why focus on his negatives and make him feel like shit?); 12/11/20, 12:42 AM
JML said...: When Charles Schulz's first marriage was failing, he was confronted by his son: "Why won't you go to therapy?" His reply: "But what would happen to Peanuts?"; 12/11/20, 1:20 AM
DEEBEE said...: Twit Daniel’s foray into the Yoga class with his mat should bear some fruit tonight.; 12/11/20, 5:25 AM
Rusty said...: Readering said...
"I would support more exploration of the ocean floors first."
I'd pay to send you there.

Guys do stuff. Most often for the fun of it or to learn something. Timid males talk about doing stuff. Usually with their therapist.; 12/11/20, 5:32 AM
stlcdr said...: Achieving something ‘impossible’ negates the need for therapist. Mankind’s need to achieve, make, create and acting on those needs is therapy.; 12/11/20, 5:50 AM
Ron Winkleheimer said...: I looked up the guy. Further confirmation that National Review is staffed by wimps and cucks.; 12/11/20, 5:55 AM
Ron Winkleheimer said...: how likely is it that an alien government would have a structure that humans like you or me would be able to understand?

How likely would it be that we could even manage communication (beyond mathematical and scientific principles) with a species that evolved on another planet?; 12/11/20, 6:01 AM
mockturtle said...: Rusty observes: Guys do stuff. Most often for the fun of it or to learn something. Timid males talk about doing stuff. Usually with their therapist.

Even more commonly, timid males are the critics and detractors of the males who dare to accomplish things. So much easier to tear down than to build.; 12/11/20, 7:27 AM
mockturtle said...: stlcdr observes: Mankind’s need to achieve, make, create and acting on those needs is therapy.

One reason so many vets have mental and emotions problems when they finish deployment is that the action is over and they don't know how to respond. These issues were addressed in the films, The Hurt Locker and American Sniper.; 12/11/20, 8:05 AM
donald said...: Haha he’s got a vagina, you just know it.; 12/11/20, 9:06 AM
PM said...: Lot of wiggle room btw Going to Mars and Therapy.; 12/11/20, 11:01 AM
Narr said...: Therapist. The rapist. That one of Nabokov's was pretty clever, and has more than a little truth.

That said, I've gone to non-physical therapists twice. My wife and I saw one (female) several times many years ago; I won't say it saved a marriage but it didn't really hurt. And it gave me some much needed insight into myself, my wife, and the therapeutic process itself.

Then, after some upheaveals and deaths around 2012, I went to a nice lady who listened to me complain about the stupidity and shallowness of too many of those closest to me; the value of that sort of thing should be obvious enough, and it got me away from the campus clownshow and the family vortex for a few hours over a couple of weeks. Insurance paid of course. (MMPI's are fun!)

But it's also very true that work is therapy too. So are friends, and jawing with strangers on the interwebz.

Martin van Creveld makes the provocative argument that the widespread prevalence and visibility of PTSD among modern soldiers may in some measure be due to the societal expectation and indoctrination that soldiers should EXPECT to be mentally shattered by combat--especially in the liberal West (incl. Israel).

And Dave Gross (in On Violence ? or maybe someone else) points out that many societies that have definite rituals of manhood also have rituals of purification after deadly violence.
The ancient Greeks had them, and used them even after victories over barbarians-- a collective therapy, in a sense.

Narr
Mars needs Therapists!; 12/11/20, 12:08 PM
Lexington Green said...: Go to therapy instead of ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING. That is what is wrong with men!

Build something, invent something, create something -- shows you are sick, and need to talk things over with somebody so you can just stop doing stuff.

Be like stereotypical women, make it about your feelings, talk, emote, grieve, feel, maybe cry.

But don't DO.

Prescription for civilizational suicide.

No wonder National Review sucks now.; 12/11/20, 12:35 PM