The phenomenon of Black Friday! Has Thanksgiving been “erased” by modern media? And why has Santa Claus become the spokesman for Christmas? Phil, Skye and Christian answer these questions AND discuss a TED talk entitled “The Demise of Guys” about media’s effect on the development of men.
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Hi Phil and the gang,
Loved this show. Even when you do not have a guest, the banter between the three of you is thought-provoking and interesting. Relating to your last second plea for a response from the audience regarding the fate of “MEN” in this day and age, I offer the following:
I think the current state of manhood is similar to what was happening during the Victorian Era among those in the upper classes of British Society. Boys were feminized, restricted in the development of their “Warrior Instinct” as Phil puts it. Boys were often dressed like girls until toddler-hood (dresses and long hair), and their tendencies to explore and subjugate their small worlds were extinguished by a bevy of nurses and servants and, later, school masters. (Of course in the lower classes, children worked, which again, sublimated their tendencies). Relief came with Child Labor Laws and specifically, the advent of the Boy Scouts in the early 1900’s, where boys were taught self-reliance, courage, and resourcefulness, among other things. (Of course this generation then took their newly rediscovered “Warrior Instinct” and was decimated in WWI- but I digress).
With this in mind, the remedy I take with my own boys is as such: I teach them about honest, hard work, the joy of being outside (away from electronic, digital, distractions), how to work with their hands, I tell them stories about their ancestors and how they had to struggle in order to survive when they immigrated from Ireland, I teach them to think logically, by giving them lots of puzzles to solve (thank God for the Rubick’s Cube) and I read aloud to them from a lot of older books (which have longer sentences and actually make the reader think about things- Twilight will never grace my book shelf), and I just let them be boys… which includes, lots of bodily noises (both real and manufactured), lots of wrestling matches with Dad (which hurt more and more the older they get and the older I get) and holding my breath and praying very hard when my 9 year old jumps from tree branch to tree branch 20 feet in the air…
Thanks for addressing this topic, I think it is important. Thank u to Skye for recommending the Ted Talk. Thanks to Christian for hanging out with these two blabbing fellows. Good work on the podcast- I look forward to it every week.
Hi Phil,
Have enjoyed listening to your podcast over the last couple of months, however speaking as an Australian when i was listening this morning to your latest episode I cringed when I heard you guys referring to ‘Koala Bears’, they are not bears just Koala’s, they are marsupials, meaning mammals that carry their young in a pouch, they do eat Eucalyptus leaves, which have almost no nutritional value which is one reason they always look so dopey.
Cheers,
Nigel
P.S I will definately check out the TED talk.
David Murrow wrote a great book on this exact topic. “Why Men Hate Going to Church” (http://churchformen.com) speaks of the fermentation of our culture and men feeling lost without well defined roles in society.
Thanks for this show, I enjoyed it.
sorry, I was trying to write feminization not fermentation