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 Nina Power

W H AT D O M E N W A N T ?

Masculinity and Its Discontents

 Contents

Introduction

1. Modern Man in Search of a Role

2. What is the Patriarchy?
3. Is Masculinity the Problem?
4. The Games Men Play
5. Is Separatism the Answer?
6. What Do Men Want?

Conclusion: Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
 About the Author

Nina Power is a writer and philosopher. She has written regularly for
the Telegraph, Art Review and Spectator, amongst other
publications. She is the author of One-Dimensional Woman (Zer0,
2009), which the New Statesman called ‘a joy to read’.
 By the Same Author

One-Dimensional Woman (Zer0 Books, 2009)

Platforms (Morbid Books, 2020)
To Daniel, a good man
 Introduction

Men and women exist. Occasionally, we even like each other.

We exist because of these two simple truths. We all owe our lives
to the fact that it is possible – at least sometimes – for men and
women to get along. All human life stems from the reality of, and
difference between, men and women.
We live, however, in an age which is increasingly keen to pretend
that sexual difference isn’t important. In some respects, it isn’t. The
past century has seen women’s mass entry into politics, culture and
the labour market under the banner of equality. Men and women are
becoming closer in terms of what they do, or want to do, and this
has, in many ways, created a more complex and interesting world.
The sexes are socially, economically, educationally, culturally and
sexually more proximate in their behaviours than ever, and yet, in
other ways, men and women could not seem further apart or less
comprehending of each other. Chaos reigns.
The modern individual is, in many ways, a neutral, desexed being.
The differences between us are papered over – in most
contemporary workplaces it doesn’t matter if a man or a woman
does the job (although men still dominate the most perilous
occupations), and it doesn’t matter if a consumer is male or female,
except if you are trying to sell them something branded, usually
unnecessarily, as masculine or feminine.
We live at once paradoxically in a sexualized culture, and a world
that would like to forget about sex. Playful androgyny, a kind of
knowing messing about with roles, while not denying the reality of
sexual difference, belongs to a distant era – think of stars from the
70s and 80s: Bowie, Prince, Grace Jones, Marc Almond, Boy George,
Annie Lennox, and others. The popularity of drag indicates that
there is great interest in the exaggerated stereotypical performance
of femininity (and to a lesser degree, masculinity), but the
undecidability of androgyny is a more delicate proposition, one
which we seem to have lost in the bid to give everything a fixed
name and an identity.
I think we need to return to thinking about men and women in
terms of ‘sex’ rather than ‘gender’, where the latter is a stand-in for
how people would like to be perceived by others. It’s not that how
we would like to be seen doesn’t matter, though it is all-too-
compatible with a culture obsessed with branding, but that by
ignoring sex we end up ignoring fundamental aspects of our shared
reality, and remain mired in confusion about who we are and how
we should understand each other.
Human beings always seem to live in one state of confusion, crisis
or chaos, or another, but lately our collective relation to biological
reality appears to have been shattered completely in favour of
something else, a ‘gender identity’, that is to say, an inner feeling
that one is a man, a woman, neither, both, sometimes one and
sometimes the other, or something else entirely. And that this
identity need not bear any relation to biological sex whatsoever. This
is what Kathleen Stock identifies in Material Girls, as ‘the trend in
favour of gender identity and away from sex’, noting that ‘a
generational divide has opened up’.1 The battle of the sexes has
become the battle over the sexes, and anyone cleaving to
‘essentialism’ or to biology, that is to say upholding the commitment
to the reality of sexual difference as fundamentally constitutive of all
human life, runs the risk of being threatened with violence, or losing
friends and work as various campaigns gear up to punish women (in
particular, but not only) for defending their sex-based rights.
As one article about Stock has noted, ‘As one of the UK’s leading
gender-critical feminists, who has insisted that an individual cannot
change their biological sex, Professor Stock has faced relentless
criticism and abuse … with blogs, petitions and Twitter users
regularly demanding her dismissal for her allegedly “transphobic”
views.’2 Stock is not alone. J. K. Rowling received violent threats
after she defended Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who had her
employment contract pulled after being accused of posting
‘transphobic’ tweets. Forstater, having lost her initial employment
tribunal, won on appeal in June 2021, with the judge stating that the
belief that biological sex is real, immutable, important and not to be
conflated with gender identity, is protected by law. Many other
women, including myself, have had talks and shows cancelled, have
been harassed and defamed for suggesting that women’s concerns
need to be taken seriously in the face of proposed legal changes to
the meaning of the words ‘men’ and ‘women’. Optimistically, one
hopes that these kinds of campaigns to ruin people – which more
and more citizens and employers are becoming aware of, and are
often described as ‘cancel culture’ – will have their day. That
institutions will stand up for those they employ, and that, where
there is a clash of rights, people will sit down together and work out
the best solution for everyone. At the same time as this battle over
sex has been happening, another war is being waged. This one is
against men, the whole damn lot of them!
To take just one recent example, in 2020’s I Hate Men, French
writer Pauline Harmange states that men are ‘violent, selfish, lazy
and cowardly … men beat, rape and murder us.’3 When men
complain that they have been unjustly maligned and generalized
against, Harmange has little sympathy: ‘All that time they spend
snivelling about how hard it is to be a poor persecuted man
nowadays is just a way of adroitly shirking their responsibility to
make themselves a little less the pure products of the patriarchy.’4
Men today are a legitimate target for hatred. Historically, we might
say ‘about time!’ and this indeed is where we are at, although we
should note that men were actually declared ‘over’ a while ago. In a
2010 article, Hanna Rosin asked, ‘What if the modern, postindustrial
economy is simply more congenial to women than to men?’5 If more
than a decade ago, Rosin could pose such a question at the level of
the economy, today the question of men is posed at the level of
culture. Men have had it too good for too long, the cry goes up.
They are responsible for the vast majority of violence. They act like
they deserve good things to come to them. Their days are
numbered.
In 2009, I wrote a short, polemical book, One-Dimensional
Woman, about women’s place in the world as I saw it then. The text
focused on the ways in which women were increasingly encouraged
to participate in the labour market, how they were encouraged to
identify as ‘workers’, and how they were depicted in contemporary
culture. It didn’t have too much to say about men, but nor did it
especially denigrate them.6 What I saw facing women in the 2000s
was not blunt misogyny, but rather the opportunism of a culture that
sought to ‘sell’ feminism to women, and, against the backdrop of the
closure of largely male-dominated industries, how workplaces were
increasingly branded as ‘female’. Men and women were, as so often,
being pitted against one another in the name of someone else
making a profit. I think that we have moved to a new phase in this
divisive process, one that plays out less at the level of work and the
economy, but more at the level of how we interact. This runs
alongside the decline in the interest of class as a category in favour
of privileging identity. It is no longer our relation to the means of
production that matters – whether we are exploited for our labour –
but rather how we identify, and whether our identity is a good one
(and therefore uncriticizable) or a bad one (therefore open to being
blamed). Men as a class today most definitely fall in the latter
category.
There are, of course, a small number of men who behave as if the
world, and the women in it, owe them something. Of this there
should be no doubt. Some men are extremely violent. Some men are
in power. These men, however, are not most men. In my experience,
and statistically, the vast majority of men are kind, thoughtful, self-
aware, interested, compassionate, loving and protective, as friends
or as partners. Perhaps I have been lucky. Yet, I don’t think so.
Many women would, I think, say the same thing. Most men are, like
most women, a mixture of good and bad, but they are not, as a rule,
irredeemable.
 Bashing men is also easy. It is much more difficult, but ultimately
much more worthwhile and, I would suggest, necessary, to wonder
how we might live together better, about how men and women
might be reconciled to one another’s existence. If we all want to live
better together, there needs to be much more constructive thought
about how we do this. Is it useful to attack one class of people?
Would this have the effect that we want, namely to get men to stop
behaving in ways we don’t like? What if it in fact has the opposite
effect, and pushes men further into the arms of ideas that are
hateful towards women? Wouldn’t this increase the likelihood of
resentful, and potentially violent, behaviour? Collectively, we all more
or less want the same thing: to live together in harmony, to minimize
harm, to get help for people in trouble, to acknowledge hurt, and to
receive justice. People disagree on the means to achieve these ends.
Some call for an increase in the prosecution and punishment of men
who commit crimes against women. This might indeed serve as a
warning to other men, and reduce such harm. Some want to
dismantle this nebulous thing called ‘patriarchy’ altogether. I
increasingly think that we need to think less in terms of structures
(and patriarchy would be one such structure), and much more in
terms of mutual respect. About how we get along day-to-day rather
than in terms of vast, oppressive systems, whose image only makes
us all more powerless. Men and women are different, but we have
forgotten how, and there are always new ways of understanding
these differences, but neglecting them altogether reveals the
absence of a common understanding of who we are, as a whole.
One of the problems of today’s dominant and negative way of
talking about men in terms of their ‘power’ and ‘privilege’, is that it
paints these attributes as essential features, as if men are just born
with these things, and that there is little to be done about it other
than complain. The idea here is that men largely treat women with
contempt, or would do if they could only get away with it more. But
if men are just ‘like that’, if they somehow constitutively loathe and
disrespect women, then how can anyone do anything about it?
Let’s start with some important questions: Are most men really
misogynist? I don’t think so. From the standpoint of spending time
with women and having and looking after children, it wouldn’t make
sense for them to be so, unless something has gone terribly wrong
with the culture in general. No doubt a small number of men (and a
few women) do resent ‘all’ women and detest ‘all’ men, respectively,
but these are unusual and extreme positions. What we encounter
instead in our daily lives, in ourselves, is a vague mix of different
thoughts and feelings that circulate in an inconclusive way. We do
not always know how we feel about somebody as an individual and
how we think about them in relation to their sex. The connection
between someone as a ‘person’ and someone as a ‘man’ or a
‘woman’ is surprisingly ambiguous: we might judge someone we
meet for the first time on the basis of their interests, appearance,
manner, and so on, but we also see sex, however tangentially. So we
encounter each other as people and as ‘man’ or ‘woman’ (or
perhaps, occasionally, ‘not obviously either’) simultaneously. We
probably all have prejudices one way or another about the opposite
sex, but we are also surely capable of seeing people for who they
are, beyond, but not completely without, the sex that they are.
If we want to live together in a healthier way, however, we must
be committed to the idea that transformation is possible, and that
people can become better human beings, capable of overcoming
difficult situations and refining their beliefs. Otherwise, we will grow
increasingly apart and segregated, not only by class and country, but
by race and sex. There may be, of necessity, times when men and
women want to be apart, or have spaces to themselves, but if we
are committed to a mixed world, then we must be truly committed
to it, to not shy away from who we are, in all of our positive and
negative aspects. Our post-Christian age is extraordinarily
unforgiving, often tying people to a single mistake they’ve made, or
treating people as mere examples of a negative category, rather
than as complex individuals in their own right. As many celebrities
have learned to their cost, but ordinary people too, the internet
never forgets. If you tweeted the ‘wrong’ thing at a certain point,
said something clumsy or deemed to be ‘harmful’, or if you once
upset someone, you will always have people on hand, usually people
you’ve never met, to remind everyone of your ‘sin’.
 Currently, just as women have been in the past (that witch made
my field barren!), men are often blamed as a whole for the actions
of a few. But a punitive logic that sees no possibility of change helps
nothing. Instead, it seems designed, perversely, to keep things
exactly as they are, in a kind of stalemate of the sexes. Our culture
often seems to combine the promotion of and prurient interest in
hedonistic behaviour alongside a puritanical morality – we live in a
pruritanical world, we could say. In other words, on the one hand,
we are encouraged to have fun, to be completely selfish and
pleasure-seeking, but, on the other, if we make a mistake, or
become the target of others, there is no limit to the social
punishment that can be meted out.
What is often forgotten today is the possibility of forgiveness – for
oneself and for others. Without forgiveness, and the acceptance that
we all make mistakes sometimes, we are all doomed to suspicious
isolation. To understand the opposite sex, though, we must first
perhaps understand ourselves. As psychoanalyst Massimo Recalcati
puts it in In Praise of Forgiveness:

The work of forgiveness, when it is successful, breaks the

constitutive relationship between the I and the paranoid-
narcissistic violence that drives it. It is a reversing, a
withdrawal, most importantly a redesigning of one’s own
image … The work of forgiveness is first and foremost an
extreme reckoning with one’s own ideal image, to the point of
understanding its real limit.7

All of which is to say, simply, that before we reach to blame those on

the outside for our misery, we might first have to come to terms with
our own expectations. It seems clear we are undergoing a sea-
change in social mores. It may be that things that were acceptable
and even playful or ambiguous a few years ago are now no longer
permitted, even if these behaviours are not yet illegal (perhaps non-
regulated flirting will become illicit in the future, for example). So,
what kind of world do we want to live in together?
 Let’s try to be honest. As I’ve said, the vast majority of men I’ve
met have been good to wonderful. I love my father, who has been a
fantastic role model in every respect. My brother, too, is a kind and
funny husband to his wife and attentive dad to his son. I love and
have loved a small number of men a great deal, and I’ve been
friends with some men for many years. I’ve had a few long-term
relationships with men, and I adore these men still. A couple of men
have behaved, at times, in ways that have hurt me, and some
relationships I’ve had in the past have been less than ideal. I’ve
caused pain too, for which I accept blame. I’ve been close to men
who’ve committed suicide, which leaves something that feels like
bullet holes in the soul. The vast majority of men I encounter in
everyday life are interesting and interested, and even the ones I
don’t get along with I often admire for something in their way of
being. All of this, I am sure, is not an unusual range of experiences
for any woman who likes men, and who enjoys spending time with
them.
It seems strange to say this, but being an adult involves taking
risks, with one’s heart, with one’s trust, and sometimes with one’s
well-being. Despite the dominant idea that we should do everything
we can to protect ourselves from potentially negative outcomes, life
is dangerous. It’s just not possible to always know what to expect,
for better and worse. As adults, we have to come to understand that
to live – to truly exist, to love – carries with it all kinds of potential
harms, as well as meaning and delight of the highest kind, each
because of the other. This does not mean that we need to excuse
negative behaviour in others or in ourselves, or that we should not
try to make amends or improve as people.
Sometimes relationships end badly, and it is not necessarily any
one person’s fault. Trying to discover who was the ‘bad guy’ in a
relationship is a one-sided game, yet many people, both men and
women, seem to want to engage in this type of blaming, as if life,
and love, were so simple. This is partly because we have been
encouraged to look for and trust in a single other far too much – as
if there is one person out there who can truly see us and redeem us,
who can complete our lives. And if it goes wrong, we must ‘hate’
them for betraying our fantasy.
Sometimes, perhaps, there is a singular loved other, but even if
you do find such a person, the act of being with them is an ongoing,
daily commitment, not something that is straightforward or easy. A
person is not a thing. A real relationship is not a commodity. Life is
frequently difficult and unfair and we are all often in need of reality
checks. To expect one person to be, for example, your lover, friend,
carer, bank manager, cleaner, child-minder, chef and therapist is a
tall order. It is obvious that any long-term, serious relationship,
however funny and joyful it might be, is always in need of hard
work. This type of commitment is often at odds with a culture that
privileges short-termism, replacing things that aren’t broken, and a
general atmosphere of faddishness, ease and comfort. While for a
period in the twentieth century, the couple or the family came to be
seen by those on the left as traditional or oppressive (and oppressive
because traditional), and indeed in many ways it was stifling and
masked all kinds of violence, the family can also be understood as a
bastion of resistance against the outside world: if the state goes
mad, if institutions start to make little sense, if what you’re being
taught makes no sense, the family can bring you back down to earth
with love and understanding.
When working well, the family can provide sanity, protection and
normality, a small haven amid chaos. A politics that seeks to displace
or destroy the family will not, in any case, last long. It no longer
seems to me to be politically radical to advocate for destroying, or
‘abolishing’, the family. On the contrary, eliminating the family very
much suits an economy and a culture that create and prey upon the
isolated, atomic individual. The couple too can be a ‘secret society’.8
The world is often insanity-inducing. In the modern era we are
surrounded by demented machines and encouraged to be always
connected. It is not clear, to me at least, whether technology has
made relationships easier or harder, though my bet is on the latter.
As the thinker and priest Ivan Illich once wrote, in defending a
notion of austerity (not the economic policy beloved of post-crash
neoliberal governments, but rather a form of personal relatedness):
‘[Austerity] is the fruit of an apprehension that things or tools could
destroy rather than enhance eutrapelia (or graceful playfulness) in
personal relations.’9 Austerity here is the turning away from
distraction towards the things that really, ultimately matter: our
affections and relations, our conversations, our difficulties and
shared reality.
It is in the spirit of ‘graceful playfulness’ that this book is
conceived, against the potential domination of our capacity for
relationships by a cruel culture. Some of the text draws on the ways
in which men talk about themselves and women online, and includes
reflections on online discussions, pornography and internet dating,
among other things. Like Illich, I think this technology threatens to
take us away from the playfulness and risk of life, while
simultaneously inducing various unhelpful kinds of suspicion and
fear. If you want to punish someone for a perceived harm, for
example, the internet is a blunt but effective tool, an extra-judicial
weapon in the war of the sexes. It’s not clear, though, how easy or
possible it is to use it responsibly, particularly where matters of the
heart are concerned.
Today the internet exists as a gigantic repository of all of the
terrible things that people are capable of thinking. We are spying
and being spied upon. It is not a particularly carefree or joyful
medium. We often run the risk of our tools using us, of negatively
conditioning our attitude towards each other. The internet often
presents a false and unbalanced picture of how things really are: yet
there we also find our desires mirrored back at us, sometimes
horrifyingly so. The internet has made us in some ways less open to
random encounters, to chance, to risk – yet life is made up of these
things. As the Savage says in Brave New World: ‘But I don’t want
comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want
freedom, I want goodness. I want sin … I’m claiming the right to be
unhappy.’10
Human beings have apparently not yet transcended their historic
human desire for misery, which sometimes comes in the form of the
opposite sex. But what, if anything, has changed in the past couple
of decades? When I was a teenager, people generally met each
other romantically in real life, randomly, often through school,
college or the pub. The 1990s was a much more ‘in-person’ decade
than the 2010s and perhaps the 2020s will turn out to be, even
leaving aside the pandemic lockdowns. Drinking and drugs were
perhaps more collective experiences than they are now, and there
was a kind of gleeful sort of ‘equality of the debauched’ that
occurred at a particular historical moment between young men and
women. ‘Ladettes’, girls who would drink and be as vulgar as their
male friends, and ‘lads’ would battle it out to be as excessive and
silly as possible.
I loved being a tomboy and ‘one of the lads’, even if the alcohol
habit turned out to be a hard one to break. This kind of no-holds-
barred, mutual mockery wasn’t particularly dignified, but it did mark
an interesting turn towards a certain kind of social equality. Without
wishing to mythicize the recent past, there was definitely a sense in
which we understood that we were all worthy of a decent piss-
taking, and that it was positive to laugh at oneself as well as others,
especially if done in good humour. I continue to believe that men
and women must be able to mock each other for their excesses as
individuals or as a group without hating each other, and without
taking disproportionate offence. I honestly think this kind of ribbing
operates precisely as a kind of safety value to ward off greater
misery and resentment. There is so much affection in being able to
laugh at oneself and each other: we cannot carry on being so scared
of hurting each other that everyone ends up even more upset! To
stay on the side of reality (and sanity) it is worth listening to others
when they tell you how they see you, rather than trying to force
them into going along with whatever idealized image you might have
of yourself. Everyone is an idiot, sometimes.
The pre-internet era wasn’t all good of course, and there might
well be some positive reasons to celebrate this subsequent, more
cautious, less hedonistic, era. But we might note at least how times
change, subtly, and ask how men and women can get along today,
how we can be more honest with each other, kinder but also more
realistic, and yet still more playful and graceful. How can we learn to
love and respect each other when these eternal values seem so
discouraged by the broader culture? Whether we imagine we live at
the end of history, or in the middle of late capitalism, or in the midst
of the collapse of liberalism, or however else this current period
could be conceived, it is certainly no exaggeration to say that such
values are neglected. It is possible to ignore the dominant culture, of
course, and many people have turned their back on it in the name of
religion, tradition or other ideas of collective well-being. But this
takes courage, and the desire to see beyond the narrow bounds of
life as it is presented to us by the mainstream.

A brief note regarding terminology: throughout this book I use the

word ‘sex’ rather than ‘gender’ to refer to men and women, and in
places I also use the word ‘sex’ to refer to the physical act. The
meaning of the word should hopefully be clear from context. I think
the word ‘gender’ has in recent decades often been used to avoid
using the word ‘sex’, due to the latter’s potentially ‘embarrassing’
other meaning. But this polite use of ‘gender’ has increasingly
caused new difficulties in the way we understand the world, as I will
try to explain in part in what follows.
 1. Modern Man in Search of a Role

Women think men should go to therapy. And men think men

should lift weights. In fact, men should read all seven volumes
of Proust’s magnum opus À la recherche du temps perdu in
the original French.

Jack, on Twitter1

Why did I write this book? Partly because I have been personally
and politically disturbed by the divisions created by media and
technology between men and women in my own lifetime. Partly
because I feel that men and women have had their lives reduced to
generalizations by a media that loves sweeping claims; I think that
these claims don’t accord in the slightest with the complex reality of
our lives. It has become very easy to speak cynically and
dismissively of a group of people on the basis of taking minor
examples and acting as if they apply to everyone included. There
are, furthermore, in the current understanding of the world, some
groups one is ‘allowed’ to denigrate, and others it is forbidden to
criticize. The most oppressed groups according to today’s logic are
those that suffer, or have suffered in the past, by virtue of their
identity. Those who want to make the world a better place – and
who doesn’t? – if they are not themselves members of oppressed
groups are encouraged to be ‘allies’ to these groups, be they trans
women, the descendants of enslaved people, or other people
marked by poor treatment. And why shouldn’t there be a historical
shift in who receives preferential treatment?
The problem comes when there is, in effect, according to this
schema, the implicit idea of a finite (or small) amount of suffering.
That there is only enough sympathy to go round for whichever
group is deemed to deserve it in the present moment. This
quantitative image of pain would mean that some people do not
suffer even when they do, which is to say, their suffering does not
count for anything. So men, to take the theme of this book, cannot
truly suffer, even when they do, because their suffering is not as real
or important as the suffering of others.
At the same time, there is a strong moral strain in some of today’s
politics, which may not only be misplaced, but, in actuality, actively
dangerous. There can exist a kind of cruelty when one is convinced
that one is behaving in the name of the ‘good’, that is to say, when
one believes one is helping those who should be helped. As
philosopher Judith Shklar puts it:

One of our political actualities is that the victims of political

torture and injustice are often no better than their tormentors.
They are only waiting to change places with the latter … even
at the cost of misanthropy, one cannot afford to pretend that
victimhood improves anyone in any way. If we do not
remember that anyone can be a victim, and if we allow hatred
for torture, or pity for pain, to blind us, we will unwittingly aid
the torturers of tomorrow by overrating the victims of today.
One may be too easily tempted to think of all victims as
equally innocent because there cannot, by definition, be a
voluntary victim. That may have the consequence of
promoting an endless exchange of cruelties between
alternating tormentors and victims.2

Victimhood today has paradoxically become a very powerful tool,

and a potentially vicious one. It is far, far harder but absolutely
necessary to begin not with the desire to rank victims, but rather
with the understanding that everyone suffers, and to try to work out
how best to minimize that suffering for everybody, which requires
careful, and adult, negotiation. Repaying one group for the suffering
of another will only result in a backlash even worse than the original
harm. If men have benefitted in the past, let us imagine a kinder
way of redistributing their gains for all, rather than entering into an
‘endless exchange of cruelties’. Let women be the bigger man.
I have a hope that, following a great deal of bitterness in recent
years, men and women can reconcile on the basis of a renewed and
greater understanding of one another. I want us to forgive one
another, where possible, to be reunited, and to enjoy life in each
other’s company – or without each other, if that is what we might
want. I hope that we can live in such a way that the differences
between men and women can be admitted where it is important to
admit them – without these differences interfering with our larger
commitments to love and respect each other as human beings in the
world. We are not the same. It is pointless and ultimately more
damaging to act as if we are: this does not mean, though, that we
cannot do and love many of the same things, and each other. We
should not be tricked into scapegoating one another: we all lose if
we do this.
So, what do men want? Asking the general question of ‘what a
man wants’ or even what any individual man ‘wants’ is, naturally, a
fool’s errand. It’s the same problem Sigmund Freud had when he
asked in a letter to Marie Bonaparte in 1925 ‘what does a woman
want?’ Almost a hundred years later, in turning the question around,
it is obvious that there is no one good or simple answer, just as
Freud could not solve his reverse enquiry. But in the spirit of play –
graceful or otherwise – let us pretend that desire is somehow
capable of answering when a simple question is put to it.
When I asked male friends what they thought men wanted, they
answered with, among other things, the following: ‘Tell me when
you find out’, ‘A pleasant woman’, ‘To be left alone’, ‘Pussy’, ‘To hang
out with my male friends’, ‘To be a good man’, ‘A shed’, ‘A woman
who will let me be myself’, ‘An easy life’, ‘Nigella Lawson’, ‘Why are
you asking me? I’m a rubbish man’, and ‘A beer’.
 But some people do imagine there is a simple answer. There exists
today a whole industry dedicated to attempting to tell men what
they should want. Masculinity is big business. Various books and
websites tell you quite clearly how to be a man. Some are pick-up-
artist manuals, which is to say, books that teach you how to
successfully flirt with and ‘hook up’ with women. Some are
guidebooks on how to be more masculine, and how to get fit
through weight-lifting and other kinds of physical training. Some are
reflective accounts of the trouble with masculinity, and some are
somewhere in between. Many of these accounts of ‘how to be a
man’ pitch themselves more or less aggressively against the
‘feminizing’ (and therefore) enervating aspects of today’s culture.
Whatever we think of the masculinity industry, the current
demonization of men is a negative situation for everyone. It breeds
massive amounts of resentment on both sides and closes off certain
possibilities for, among other things, a more generous,
understanding and playful relation between the sexes. When we look
at the recent rise of self-help thinkers such as Jordan Peterson who
appeal mainly to young men, we see, in part, something of a cultural
need being filled for a father figure to the masses.
Peterson inhabits a certain image of the patriarch: a smartly
dressed, almost 1950s-era older man who offers insight and takes
responsibility for guiding the youth. Peterson, who in his 2018
bestseller, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, promises to teach
you how to avoid ‘pathways to Hell’, symbolizes a certain need for
direction, which is often otherwise absent in the wider culture, or in
young people’s family lives. His appeal lies in his synthetic wisdom –
a combination of Christianity, liberal values, Jungian ideas and a
confrontation with suffering: ‘To stand up straight with your
shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with
eyes wide open’.3 Many people, it seems, desire the kind of
certainty that comes from someone saying basic things in a stern
manner: ‘Tidy your room!’ or ‘Sort your life out!’
Could Peterson only have been a man? ‘Tidy your room!’ is also
the kind of thing that mothers, perhaps especially, say to their
teenage children. Young women are surely in as much need of
guidance as young men, and some men would do well to listen to
older, wiser women. Yet, as Ed West asks, ‘how come there has
never been a female Jordan Peterson?’4 Writer Mary Harrington
points out in response that ‘a female Jordan Peterson would have to
talk about motherhood. But the paradox is that those who are in the
thick of motherhood don’t have time to be Jordan Peterson.’5
Harrington goes on to suggest that a female Jordan Peterson could
be found among the ranks of women who have already raised their
children, and that we should ‘platform more grannies’.6
Part of the project of reconciliation I’m interested in here might
well involve ‘more grannies’: the way in which the collective wisdom
of the elderly is side-lined by a culture obsessed with youth, novelty
and transience is truly terrible. Mothers, and older women, are often
ignored in political discourse, or dismissed horribly by both young
men and young women.
My book is not really about how to be more manly, nor will it
particularly help, I suspect, any woman seeking to improve her
relationship with any particular man, at least not in any
straightforward way. It is partly philosophical, partly observational,
and partly a work of cultural criticism. I’ve looked at some extreme
aspects of male life the better to understand how some men think,
and what this tells us more broadly about what dialogue might be
possible in the future. During the research for this book I found it
fascinating to observe, online and off, what men talk about when
they talk about themselves, and what they say about women,
particularly when they don’t think women are listening.
I am honestly not entirely sure that women should know what is
said about them out of earshot, but in the spirit of a certain kind of
bloody-minded enlightenment, I decided to find out. There is a lot I
miss out – I don’t really talk about men and sports, for example,
though there would be a lot to say about masculinity and football, in
particular. This book was written in the UK, and my examples are
largely drawn from Western countries. It is largely about the
relationship – or lack thereof – between men and women, therefore
it does not discuss male homosexuality in any real depth.
My text therefore focuses on men, women, heterosexuality, and,
as we shall see, heterosociality. When I say we live in a
‘heterosocial’ world, I mean that the sexes are mixed almost
everywhere in cultural, daily and economic life, with major historical
consequences: the question of how men and women should interact
at work following #MeToo, for example, or the ongoing question
today of whether there are spaces and realms, such as toilets,
changing rooms, sports, prisons and shelters, that should continue
to be segregated by biological sex.
‘Heterosociality’ here means something a lot broader than the
more common word ‘heterosexuality’. The social includes the sexual,
but is not reducible to it. We are ‘heterosocial’ all the time in the
modern world, whether we like it or not. Women have definitively
entered political, cultural and economic spheres. There is an
incomplete equality at work, and our differences and similarities are
in something of an uneasy stand-off where we don’t always know
what it means to be a man or a woman, or, at least, we don’t always
know when these things should matter or not. There is no going
back, I think, to a more segregated world, though separatism is a
partial option (or desire) for a very few men, as we will see. I also
don’t think the solution to our disagreements lies in more
technology, and I am very wary of transhumanist or futuristic
suggestions for solving the ‘problem’ of sexual difference, i.e.
artificial wombs. If anything, I propose simply a certain acceptance
of the world we have, the world we share, the world we live in
together.

‘Toxic masculinity’, a phrase emerging in the 1980s and 1990s which

saw an explosion of use from around 2014 onwards, seeks to
capture the idea that certain kinds of male behaviour are poisonous,
to men themselves as well as to others. These would include, among
other things, misogyny, homophobia, an acceptance of violence as
natural, and male dominance in general. The idea of ‘toxic
masculinity’ is today, however, often invoked generally to describe
and name everything from men speaking over women to the
murderous rage of a tiny number of men. As Maya Salem put it in
The New York Times, toxic masculinity is ‘what can come of teaching
boys that they can’t express emotion openly; that they have to be
“tough all the time”; that anything other than that makes them
“feminine” or weak’.7
In previous eras there were different ways of speaking about men.
We might have talked about a family man, a fancy man, a ladies’
man, a cad, a rogue, a man of the world, a man of his day,
yesterday’s man, or a man of his word. Today we often lack these
principles of discrimination and discernment, encouraged to tar all
men with the same brush and operating in a permanent state of
vigilance, shuddering at the merest hint of supposed male ‘toxicity’.
But what in any case could this toxicity be? The word itself comes
from a Greek word meaning ‘poison’, relating especially to arrows,
and we can also hear echoes of the dangers of nuclear waste, a
substance that must be contained at the risk of spreading harmful
particles. To describe masculinity as ‘toxic’ is to suggest that not only
have men been poisoned, but that they are extending their poison to
the rest of society. Men might still be overall seen as more
trustworthy than women in some contexts, but a poison gas is
seeping out everywhere. Masculinity is contagious and deadly.
But what is the remedy? There is a tension here at the heart of
the situation. Either men cannot or should not be masculine at all,
which might entail them becoming ‘more like women’ in a
stereotypical sense, which is to say more empathetic, more sensitive
and so on. Or they should be adopting different kinds of masculinity
that are not so ‘toxic’. Or men could instead simply refuse the idea
that any kind of masculinity is toxic at all, and assert that they have
a right to behave however they like. We see all of these options
playing out across different areas of life, and those of different
political persuasions have strong feelings about whether men should
behave in a ‘modern’ way, or whether male nature has something
unshakeably ‘masculine’, that is to say, rough, about it.
 One example of male toxicity is indicated by the term
‘mansplaining’. As Lara Rutherford-Morrison puts it:

When a man ‘mansplains’ something to a woman, he

interrupts or speaks over her to explain something that she
already knows – indeed, something in which she may already
be an expert – on the assumption that he must know more
than she does. In many cases, the explanation has to do
specifically with things that are unique to women – their
bodies, their experiences, their lives. When men interrupt or
presume to correct a woman who is speaking of her own
experience or expertise, they are implying that she is
ignorant, that she is incapable of having authoritative
knowledge. They are saying, essentially, ‘Shh. I know best.’8

There is no doubt that this kind of ‘talking-over’ happens, and not

only by men over women. But I wonder if sometimes an enthusiasm
for talking is misconstrued as patronizing or arrogant speech. Is the
issue with ‘mansplaining’, the explanation itself, or rather a certain
performance of it – so that the criticism is really directed against
men who are doing it badly rather than the act itself? Women, like
all sentient beings, enjoy a well-told story. Would that we could all
learn to entertain each other to the best of our ability. Sometimes it
is genuinely delightful to hear someone share their knowledge, even
if it’s something you already have a good idea about. If we all had
more time to talk and listen, and did not feel so pressured to speak,
conversation would undoubtedly be greatly improved.
Men also stand accused, perhaps more light-heartedly, of
‘manspreading’, sitting with their legs widely apart on public
transport and crushing those sitting beside them, as if possessed of
such great manliness that they would hurt themselves if their legs
were any closer together. Other negative man-related terms have
emerged in recent years, such as ‘mentrification’, whereby, according
to Van Badham:
 If ‘gentrification’ describes the process by which one
‘improves’ a place so it ‘conforms to middle-class taste’,
mentrification achieves an equal status transformation by
taking the history of female participation and achievement,
and festooning its narrative with phalluses.9

Some of these neologisms might raise a smile, others might seem

unfair. But no discussion of any of these shots fired could be
complete without a discussion of #MeToo, the largest wide-scale
attack on male power in recent history.
It’s 2018. #MeToo is in full swing, after the resurrection of the
term in October 2017 by Hollywood and celebrity actors, who took
the phrase from Tarana Burke, an activist and community organizer
who had first used it in 2006 to highlight the sexual abuse suffered
by poor black women and children. Through paralegal means, such
as internet denunciations and anonymous stories, alongside personal
stories and the hashtag, many men in positions of power across
every industry are named as having behaved inappropriately,
sexually or otherwise, and, in many cases, they are usurped from
their jobs and, in some cases, socially ostracized. There have since
been a few high-profile prison sentences handed out to, among
others, Harvey Weinstein and cult leader Keith Raniere.
Some men were, unsurprisingly, perturbed by #MeToo. Writing for
the Washington Post, dating coach Harris O’Malley concludes that
‘the only line separating a co-worker and a harassment suit is
convenience.’10 There’s a popular internet meme on this point that
shows characters at an office. In one box titled ‘appropriate’, a good-
looking man is saying, ‘Looking good, Susan’, to which the female
worker responds, ‘Aww, you’re sweet.’ In the second box, marked
‘inappropriate’, an overweight man in glasses makes the same
compliment to Susan, to which she is seen to respond by picking up
the phone and calling Human Resources, no doubt to report her
colleague for sexual harassment. Context is all. Life is full of
misunderstandings, confusion and mistakes. Ascribing malign
intention to anything that upsets you will generate more fearfulness.
How can a man tell if a woman is interested in being approached?
Well, often he cannot. It is far safer to stay away. In this respect,
men are not wrong to be wary of taking on the mentorship of young
women, for example, or to be increasingly careful of what they say
and do at work (one 2010 study found that two-thirds of men shied
away from mentoring junior women for fear that others would
suspect sexual intentions).11 Constructing harsh rules for the ways
in which men and women should interact at work, for example,
might prevent the most egregious types of antisocial behaviour, or it
might not.
The #MeToo event has not proceeded, however, without a certain
push-back from women. A letter was published in France, signed by
Catherine Deneuve and many other female luminaries. It stated,
among other things, the following:

As women, we don’t recognize ourselves in this feminism that,

beyond the denunciation of abuses of power, takes the face of
a hatred of men and sexuality. We believe that the freedom to
say ‘no’ to a sexual proposition cannot exist without the
freedom to bother. And we consider that one must know how
to respond to this freedom to bother in ways other than by
closing ourselves off in the role of the prey […] Incidents that
can affect a woman’s body do not necessarily affect her
dignity and must not, as difficult as they can be, necessarily
make her a perpetual victim. Because we are not reducible to
our bodies. Our inner freedom is inviolable. And this freedom
that we cherish is not without risks and responsibilities.12

This image of freedom is absolutely at odds with another dominant

character in today’s social pantheon that we have already met – the
victim. Are women fundamentally free, or are they not? If they are
not, who has responsibility for them? If something bad happens at
the hands of a man, does that define who that woman is, and, if so,
for how long? From a philosophical and feminist point of view, I
think it would be entirely inadequate to deny that women are
fundamentally free – free not only to respond to men, free to follow
their own desire, and to reject the logic of fear and victimhood that
diminishes their capacity to be in the world. Let us be clear: this
freedom hits a wall when male violence is at its most extreme, when
women are hurt and killed by men. It is imperative that we find
every possible solution to the problem of male violence, beginning,
above all, with prevention. We all, no doubt, agree on this. The
question is deciding how best to collectively achieve it.
In this regard, the #MeToo moment could be read from one angle
as historically inevitable, as part of the usual process of the shift in
social mores that periodically occurs. But it also revealed the
destructive power of the internet in relation to names – once you put
someone’s name out there attached to an unsavoury allegation, you
have no control over the extent to which that claim spreads nor can
you contain the effects it might have on someone’s life. Some
accusers no doubt justly felt that their complaints could not be
handled legally for various reasons, therefore there was no other
option than to make them online – but the court of public opinion,
where many men stand accused of serious offences, often
anonymously and with no way of verifying them, is an extremely
rough system. The opportunities for malevolence are high, and the
rewards uncertain.
Other types of men have also come under attack. We have seen
the repeated demonization of so-called ‘incels’ – involuntary
celibates – men who do not have a girlfriend or sexual relations with
women (interestingly, though, the term was originally coined by a
woman).13 These young men meet online, although their forums
are frequently shut down, to discuss their predicament and to share
memes. Described by Kate Manne as ‘a vivid symptom of a much
broader and deeper cultural phenomenon. [Incels] crystallize some
men’s toxic sense of entitlement to have people look up to them
steadfastly, with a loving gaze, admiringly – and to target and even
destroy those who fail, or refuse to do so.’14 Several murders have
been pinned to ‘incels’, including Elliot Rodger, who killed six people
by stabbing and shooting in California in 2014, and Alex Minassian,
who drove a van into pedestrians, killing ten people in Toronto in
2018.
The vast majority of incels are not, however, murderers. Wanting
to be loved is a deeply human desire. When these young men come
together to commiserate online they are not only sharing their
resentment at being unable to find love, but are creating a
community for outsiders. Society loves to pile on its ‘losers’, but as
Alex Lee Moyer’s 2020 documentary about US incels TFW No GF
shows, many of these young men are economically deprived, living
in miserable small towns without much hope of secure employment,
let alone many of the other trappings of middle-class life and future
prospects, and yet they can be charming and funny and inventive
online. Moyer’s documentary was attacked for humanizing the ‘incel
community’, but let’s put this another way: is it better to understand
the men we fear, or is it better to isolate and ostracize them further?
A society that understood brokenness and the potential for violence
might not be able to eliminate it completely, but it might do a better
job of reintegrating those who stand on the brink by embracing and
helping them to feel less alone.
Anybody who cares about humanity as such should also be
concerned about the pain of men – not least because how else are
we collectively supposed to minimize this pain, the better to prevent
men from passing it on – to themselves, to each other, to women?
There is currently a major drugs crisis in the USA that largely
afflicts poor and working-class men and women, with 72,000 people
dying as a result of it in 2019 – 70 per cent of whom were men.15
‘Men’s rights activists’ often seek to highlight male suffering of this
kind. MRAs, as they are usually known, are part of the ‘men’s rights
movement’, which is frequently accused of ‘male supremacy’,
misogyny and hatred, though I don’t think the entire movement can
be reduced to this by any means. In reality, it is hard to see where
‘male privilege’ is supposed to lie, particularly when looking at the
life chances of poor and working-class men.
MRAs can be found online in the ‘manosphere’, myriad online sites
dedicated to all things manly. Here you will come across pick-up
artists, the no-fap (anti-masturbation/anti-porn) movement, multiple
weight-lifting and gym communities, and various sites that
encourage discipline and fitness in the name of refusing the ongoing
‘emasculation’ of today’s man.
There are also male separatists of a kind, as we will see. In
particular MGTOW, ‘Men Going Their Own Way’, a movement that
claims that historically 60 per cent of men never had children of their
own. MGTOW followers tend to opt out of what they see as the
‘parasitic’ nature of contemporary dating, which they consider to be
unfair: men, they say, accurately or otherwise, are still supposed to
pick up the bill in return for a measly chance at sex or a relationship.
Why bother? Instead MGTOW members celebrate male achievement
beyond the family. Their heroes are, among others, Tesla,
Beethoven, Galileo and Jesus Christ.
Some men today pride themselves on their physical prowess,
spending time at the gym or engaging in highly physical sports in
their spare time. This is perhaps evidence of a war against our
sedentary, informational age. Some men want a life without women,
others just want to get fit and stay healthy: and why not? But is this
all there is to contemporary masculinity?
We have lost sight today of the possibility of linking masculinity to
goodness – and this, above all, is what I want to defend. How to get
there? We could, as Grayson Perry suggests, begin by questioning
‘outdated’ versions of masculinity.16 We could say, as he does, that
masculinity ‘needs to change’ because most versions of it are a
‘blight’ on society; or we could shift a little and say that perhaps we
need to resurrect what was good about older kinds of masculinity in
the name of a different image of the present and future. Many men
are already good, which is to say they look after themselves and
others, care for their families, sacrifice their time and energy to
making the world a better place for all: it is unfair and untrue
therefore to damn men and masculinity as such.
The general social attitude today is, however, to be worried that
masculinity is damaging to both boys and men and girls and women.
The American Psychological Association Guidelines for Psychological
Practice with Boys and Men (2018), states that ‘In Western culture,
the dominant ideal of masculinity has moved from an upper-class
aristocratic image to a more rugged and self-sufficient ideal.’17 The
APA stresses that these ideals are in any case damaging stereotypes,
and might ‘potentially alienate sexual- and gender-minority men
from a complete male identity’ as well as ‘ostracize some gay,
bisexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals’.18
While noting that ‘although privilege has not applied to all boys and
men in equal measure, in the aggregate, males experience a greater
degree of social and economic power than girls and women in a
patriarchal society,’ the authors go on to add that ‘male privilege
often comes with a cost in the form of adherence to sexist ideologies
designed to maintain male power that also restrict men’s ability to
function adaptively’.19
Following the historic, economic and social ‘masculinization’ of
women (women’s entry into many of the worlds that used to belong
solely to men), we now sometimes also witness the ‘feminizing’ of
men, in the form of an imposed guilt upon boys and men merely for
behaving in ‘masculine’, that is to say today, in ‘negative’ ways –
being boisterous, loud, domineering, and so on. Certain kinds of
behaviour come to be rewarded over others – we can see this all the
way to the job market where many economies have themselves
become ‘feminized’, that is to say, less physical, more dependent on
traditionally ‘feminine’ skills such as communication and sociability.
Western economies largely do not require large amounts of physical
labour. This has an impact on the values of our culture at large. If it
is positive that men are less ‘manly’ than they were in the past, then
that is part of our cultural evolution. But far better to note what has
been lost, than to pretend that this is the only way things must
henceforth be.
In the West, compared to the past and to many other societies,
we see a generalized abdication of male instruction, and a lack of
initiation rituals in the passage from boyhood to manhood. If
masculinity is in trouble today, it is because our understanding of
humanity as a whole is in trouble. What would, instead, a
masculinity directly related to an idea of the good look like today? It
can only begin by resurrecting the necessity of virtue as such, which
is to say to recognize the capacity of men to be good in the first
place. In order for the question of the good to even be asked, we
have to return to older ideas of virtue. Boys and men must be
allowed to be good, to become better, and be celebrated for doing
so.
So, there is, it seems to me, this very deep and ancient question
at the heart of what it means to be a man or a woman, namely,
what it means to be a good man and a good woman. This is by no
means an easy question when today there either seems to be no
answer or too many answers to it. The question of sex is a question
of morality, though this is something we tend to scoff at these days
– ‘As if there’s any one way to be a good man!’, ‘How could we
know!’, ‘F**k off! No one tells me how to live!’ It sounds religious or
conservative to link one’s moral being to one’s sex: it is to be anti-
modern, regressive, restrictive, oppressive. Don’t we live in an age in
which we can choose how to live as individuals decoupled from our
sex? Are we not sublimely, historically, free?
If we talk today about being a ‘good man’ we no doubt hear the
shudder-inducing echo of an earlier, narrow, understanding of
masculinity. We think of the punishment of men who failed to live up
to an ‘ideal’. But the emphasis here should be on trying to live as
honestly and realistically as possible, not about living up to some
impossible standard or imagining that there is one ideal way of being
a man. For example, by learning how and when to use one’s
judgement and strength, both physical and mental, one also learns
how not to misuse these things.
People are good men or women because they do good things, or
try to, not because an individual says of themselves that they are
‘good’, or because they have the ‘right line’ on an issue. The
question of what these ‘good things’ are is complicated, and must be
discovered through trial and error, but we can begin from the
assumption that we are all unlikely to find out what goodness is from
a culture based, in the first place, on the manipulation of desires for
negative ends – that is to say, an amoral consumerism that panders
to our basest desires. In order then to discover what it means to be
a good man or woman, we must question how the world today is
sold to us, and need to be prepared to look at ourselves in the
mirror without the protection of cynicism or the distraction of
endless cover stories about how ‘progressive’ modern life is
supposed to be.
In our age, the kind of ‘freedom’ offered by a hedonistic capitalism
has tried to turn us all into something less than human. Rather, we
are commodities of a kind, person-sized objects that sell themselves
while simultaneously accumulating things. Our ‘rewards’, such as
they are, tend to draw us deeper into the world of things, and often
towards oblivion and distraction. In the realm of thought, social
media has revealed that the punishments for disagreeing with others
can be severe: it may be that we all need to get offline sooner rather
than later, the better to remember who we are, and who our real
friends are. We are often compelled to forget that free and simple
pleasures – conversation, walking outside, being in nature – are also
available to us. Beyond endless consumption, the nervous avoidance
of serious questions, or a lack of confidence in how we handle
ourselves, life can often be very beautiful. What it means to be a
man, and what it means to be a woman, are precisely questions that
are posed, implicitly or otherwise, in these sacred times and these
elevating places. Only a cynical mindset seeks to diminish
experiences that are open to all.
What then can and does this world tell us about men, and about
the relationship between men and women? Humanity’s break with
nature appears to have been decisive – indeed, to even invoke
‘nature’ is to run the risk of falling into essentialism, the worst of all
crimes today: ‘You are saying something is a certain thing, and can’t
be another thing!’ But part of accepting life and becoming mature is
understanding and accepting what cannot be changed. Our culture
often flinches from the idea that ‘men’ and ‘women’ can be defined,
and that we can draw any conclusions about who we are from our
biology. But we are, it must be admitted, alive, somewhere midway
between nature and history. We are not virtual. We are real and
embodied, despite dreams of artificial wombs, immortality, and other
proposed technological ‘solutions’.
Human beings are a sexually dimorphic species. Sexual difference
is real. There has been a great deal of trepidation in saying this in
recent years, and the costs for individuals and professionals who do
so has sometimes been very high. But there is no third sex. Intersex
conditions are extremely rare, and do not demonstrate that sex is a
spectrum, as some suggest (the editors of Scientific American in
2017, for example, state that ‘to varying extents, many of us are
biological hybrids on a male–female continuum’20 ): on the contrary,
intersex conditions prove that there are two sexes by virtue of being
disruptions in the sexual development of male or female bodies.21
But being male or female need not be oppressive. How we decide
to live out our lives as the sexed beings that we are is up to us.
Gender is the name we give to the expectations society has of us. In
recent years, however, the use of this word has shifted: we’ve
moved from an idea of gender as something imposed from the
outside (i.e. the expectation that girls/boys and men/women should
behave in certain ways) to an idea of gender as something felt
internally, or as something that could be claimed as an identity.
The first position understands that gender is something to get
beyond, i.e. that we collectively need to open up the possibilities of
expressing oneself however one wants, but this approach does not
deny the underlying reality of sexual difference (important for,
among other things, understanding how our bodies actually work).
The second idea of gender is regressive, although it purports to be
progressive: it says that if you like things typically associated with
boys/girls or men/women then you must ‘be’ that identity. Keira Bell
is a young woman who became a trans man then detransitioned. In
December 2020, she won her case against the Tavistock Gender
Identity Development Service, arguing that they had prescribed her
puberty blockers without due consideration. Bell described her first
appointment with the clinic at the age of sixteen in the following
way: ‘I had a one-hour appointment and it was very general,
surface-level stuff. “What is your preferred name? Do you want to
transition?” And a lot of stereotype talk about whether I played with
boys’ toys, preferred boys’ clothes. There was no discussion about
my sexuality.’22
I believe that the difference between the sexes is real and
important on every level of our collective being. It is by
understanding the fact that we are in the first place either male or
female that we can then decide how to live out this fact, even if we
decide to live as the opposite sex, or as no sex, or both. Sex has a
historical as well as a biological reality. It is destructive to everyone
to pretend that this isn’t true.
Sexual difference is nevertheless always riven with possibility, not
least because there is a limit to how much we can ‘be like’ the
‘opposite’ sex. We can mimic the social attributes and ‘roles’ of the
sex which we are not, and indeed, much of the twentieth century
was arguably devoted to closing the gap between what boys and
girls, men and women could do and be, and who they could love.
This was a major social project, often led by feminists, that sought
to allow people to be whoever they want to be. This position did not
seek to deny or escape biological reality, or to pretend that sexual
difference didn’t exist, but it did deny that anyone had to behave a
certain way because of their sex.
When I was growing up, you did not have to be a boy to like toys,
hobbies or jobs typically or historically associated with the male sex.
And it didn’t ‘make you a girl’ if you were a boy who liked sparkly
things (many girls didn’t like them either). The subsequent forgetting
of sex, and the reinforcement of the idea that if you like ‘boy’ things
then you must be one, has partly arisen because of an emphasis on
individual identity, which takes us further away from who we are as
a differentiated but collective social body.
Social media has encouraged people to present a ‘shopping list’ of
aspects of their being, in place of developing personality or
character. It is of course much easier to declare yourself as
something novel than it is to dedicate years of your life to becoming
a well-rounded individual, or a scholar, or an activist. Yet we do not,
in reality, live as isolated ‘identities’ but instead exist in relation to
people around us. Human beings are mimetic, which is to say, we
copy and emulate each other constantly. Paradoxically, or rather
perversely, this would include the social contagion of people who
privilege individual identity – in many ways, this is another,
somewhat detrimental, way of belonging, which involves copying
what others do. Perhaps culture will swing back again soon to
thinking and acting collectively and cooperatively, as opposed to
encouraging the creation of millions of little islands.
We are all complicated beings with multiple desires, many of
which conflict. Yet we are all also simply thrown into the world with
a body we didn’t choose. This is a shared experience, even as we
might find ourselves alienated from the world and feel that we
struggle alone. It is far kinder, in the end, to admit that life is hard
for everyone, than it is to encourage individuals to feel like it is their
fault alone that they feel bad. A greater shared understanding of the
difficulties of life from childhood onwards would, paradoxically,
encourage greater overall contentment.

Do we live in the time of the ‘twilight of the penis’?23 Or are men

more dominant than ever? Do men and women love each other? Do
we secretly hate each other? Or do we merely tolerate each other as
nature plays merry tricks on us behind our backs? The questions
posed by the great religious and mythical texts of the past are not so
far removed from the twenty-first century as we might like to
believe. There is, marvellously, very little new under the sun, which
we all live under.
There are many strange and wonderful friendships and positive
interactions of all kinds happening all the time between boys and
girls and men and women. There are many more ways of loving and
being together than the merely sexual, and affection beyond the
romantic is, in some ways, more meaningful. Our age has pushed a
simplistic version of erotic love as the most desirable way of being
with another person at the expense of more lively and spirited
communion.
 For the Greeks, for example, the ludic (playful), was a kind of love
all of its own. How delightful this is: to play is to have an entirely
different relation to time beyond the one imposed by the clock, and
by the obligation to work. It is imperative for the future of the
species that we expand and develop new games to play with one
another! We bond over games that we ourselves make up.
Relationships between men and women can be flirtatious, amusing,
amicable, thoughtful, compassionate, understanding, mutually
baffling, and so on. I think we must try to open up the space for a
kind of infinite play that at the same time is serious – serious in its
playfulness. We too often forget the pleasure of play. Some games
too have beautiful outcomes, and even just in the playing of them
the present is rendered sublime.
Lately, an unforgiving strain of feminism has been pushed –
though this feminism doesn’t bear much resemblance to the sort I
grew up with. The kind I remember encouraged both girls and boys
not to feel hemmed in by gender roles. It did not ‘blame’ people for
the sex they were.
To be a man today, however, is a guilt-ridden business. To live
guiltily, however, is not a useful or a beneficial way for anyone to
live. It generates resentment in men, who, quite rightly, do not want
to submit to an apologetic existence, and creates confusion in
women, who want men to acknowledge both their capacity for harm
and their capacity for goodness. Guilt produces nothing of any use
for society if it doesn’t change how we treat each other. On its own,
it just doesn’t do anything, and even creates greater misery. The
assumption of men’s guilt merely serves to delay a conversation and
a dialogue that would arguably benefit us all. While this is a book,
then, about men, it is also about the ongoing and always improvable
relationship between men and women.
The final word in the phrase ‘what do men want?’ opens up the
realm of desire, which is often shrouded, for good reason, in great
mystery, promise and even a kind of terror. We often want things
that are bad for us. We do not often know what it is we do want,
and how this relates to what might be good for us, or for humanity
as a whole. How many people, let alone men today, could say with
any certainty that they knew and understood what desire was, let
alone their own stake in it?
In 1997, John Carlin wrote in the Independent about a new course
running at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York, entitled
‘Men and Masculinity’. Women signed up in great numbers, just as
they did to all 500 courses on the topic of masculinity given in the
US during this period. Carlin suggests that in the end the answer to
the question of what a man wants is, in fact, clear: a pair of Dockers
trousers. At this time 70 per cent of US men owned a pair: ‘Buying
Dockers pants allows [the man] to satisfy a powerful craving to be
one of the guys; to belong to the large extended club of like-minded,
similarly confused, subtly attractive men.’24 So, if we wanted one
answer to the question of what men want, it would be a pair of
trousers.
If only everything were so simple.
In his 1979 book, The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch,
one of the great cultural historians of the twentieth century, as
prescient as he was incisive, analyses the ‘battle of the sexes’,
suggesting that capitalism has shifted from a paternalistic and
familial form to a managerial, bureaucratic system of ‘almost total
control’.25 Chivalry has collapsed, sex has been liberated from its
former constraints, sexual pleasure has become an end in itself and
personal relations have become emotionally overloaded.
Furthermore, what has simultaneously transpired is an ‘irrational
male response to the emergence of the liberated woman’.26 Having
been stripped of their historical role of protecting women, Lasch
suggests that men assert their residual desire for domination in
violent fantasies: ‘from reverence to rape’, as one study he mentions
puts it. ‘Men no longer treat women as ladies’, he notes,
mournfully.27 In Lasch’s account, the proximity of the sexes induced
by capitalist liberation has generated new forms of potential harm.
How much more accurate his insights seem in a world of dating
apps, and the great levelling of the sexes to the status of neutered,
competitive beings.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
spite of General Scott. There was an attempt made to cry up Lyon in
Missouri; but in fact it was Frank Blair, the brother of the Postmaster-
General, who had been the soul and body of all the actions in that
State. The first step taken by M‘Clellan in Western Virginia was
atrocious—he talked of slaves in a public document as property.
Butler, at Monroe, had dealt with them in a very different spirit, and
had used them for State purposes under the name of contraband.
One man alone displayed powers of administrative ability, and that
was Quartermaster Meigs; and unquestionably from all I heard, the
praise was well bestowed. It is plain enough that the political leaders
fear the consequences of delay, and that they are urging the military
authorities to action, which the latter have too much professional
knowledge to take with their present means. These Northern men
know nothing of the South, and with them it is omne ignotum pro
minimo. The West Point professor listened to them with a quiet
smile, and exchanged glances with me now and then, as much as to
say, “Did you ever hear such fools in your life?”
But the conviction of ultimate success is not less strong here than
it is in the South. The difference between these gentlemen and the
Southerners is, that in the South the leaders of the people, soldiers
and civilians, are all actually under arms, and are ready to make
good their words by exposing their bodies in battle.
I walked home with Mr. N.P. Willis, who is at Washington for the
purpose of writing sketches to the little family journal of which he is
editor, and giving war “anecdotes;” and with Mr. Olmsted, who is
acting as a member of the New York Sanitary Commission, here
authorised by the Government to take measures against the reign of
dirt and disease in the Federal camp. The Republicans are very
much afraid that there is, even at the present moment, a conspiracy
against the Union in Washington—nay, in Congress itself; and regard
Mr. Breckenridge, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Vallandigham, and others as most
dangerous enemies, who should not be permitted to remain in the
capital. I attended the Episcopal church and heard a very excellent
discourse, free from any political allusion. The service differs little
from our own, except that certain euphemisms are introduced in the
Litany and elsewhere, and the prayers for Queen and Parliament are
offered up nomine mutato for President and Congress.
 CHAPTER X.

Arlington Heights and the Potomac—Washington—The Federal camp—

General M‘Dowell—Flying rumours—Newspaper correspondents—
General Fremont—Silencing the Press and Telegraph—A Loan Bill—
Interview with Mr. Cameron—Newspaper criticism on Lord Lyons—
Rumours about M‘Clellan—The Northern army as reported and as it is—
General M‘Clellan.

July 8th.—I hired a horse at a livery stable, and rode out to

Arlington Heights, at the other side of the Potomac, where the
Federal army is encamped, if not on the sacred soil of Virginia,
certainly on the soil of the district of Columbia, ceded by that State to
Congress for the purposes of the Federal Government. The Long
Bridge which spans the river, here more than a mile broad, is an
ancient wooden and brick structure, partly of causeway, and partly of
platform, laid on piles and uprights, with drawbridges for vessels to
pass. The Potomac, which in peaceful times is covered with small
craft, now glides in a gentle current over the shallows unbroken by a
solitary sail. The “rebels” have established batteries below Mount
Vernon, which partially command the river, and place the city in a
state of blockade.
As a consequence of the magnificent conceptions which were
entertained by the founders regarding the future dimensions of their
future city, Washington is all suburb and no city. The only difference
between the denser streets and the remoter village-like environs, is
that the houses are better and more frequent, and the roads not
quite so bad in the former. The road to the Long Bridge passes by a
four-sided shaft of blocks of white marble, contributed, with
appropriate mottoes, by the various States, as a fitting monument to
Washington. It is not yet completed, and the materials lie in the field
around, just as the Capitol and the Treasury are surrounded by the
materials for their future and final development. Further on is the red,
and rather fantastic, pile of the Smithsonian Institute, and then the
road makes a dip to the bridge, past some squalid little cottages, and
the eye reposes on the shore of Virginia, rising in successive folds,
and richly wooded, up to a moderate height from the water. Through
the green forest leaves gleams the white canvas of the tents, and on
the highest ridge westward rises an imposing structure, with a
portico and colonnade in front, facing the river, which is called
Arlington House, and belongs, by descent, through Mr. Custis, from
the wife of George Washington, to General Lee, Commander-in-
Chief of the Confederate army. It is now occupied by General
M‘Dowell as his head-quarters, and a large United States’ flag floats
from the roof, which shames even the ample proportions of the many
stars and stripes rising up from the camps in the trees.
At the bridge there was a post of volunteer soldiers. The sentry on
duty was sitting on a stump, with his firelock across his knees,
reading a newspaper. He held out his hand for my pass, which was
in the form of a letter, written by General Scott, and ordering all
officers and soldiers of the army of the Potomac to permit me to pass
freely without let or hindrance, and recommending me to the
attention of Brigadier-General M‘Dowell and all officers under his
orders. “That’ll do, you may go,” said the sentry. “What pass is that,
Abe?” inquired a non-commissioned officer. “It’s from General Scott,
and says he’s to go wherever he likes.” “I hope you’ll go right away
to Richmond, then, and get Jeff Davis’s scalp for us,” said the
patriotic sergeant.
At the other end of the bridge a weak tête de pont, commanded by
a road-work further on, covered the approach, and turning to the
right I passed through a maze of camps, in front of which the various
regiments, much better than I expected to find them, broken up into
small detachments, were learning elementary drill. A considerable
number of the men were Germans, and the officers were for the
most part in a state of profound ignorance of company drill, as might
be seen by their confusion and inability to take their places when the
companies faced about, or moved from one flank to the other. They
were by no means equal in size or age, and, with some splendid
exceptions, were inferior to the Southern soldiers. The camps were
dirty, no latrines—the tents of various patterns—but on the whole
they were well castrametated.
The road to Arlington House passed through some of the finest
woods I have yet seen in America, but the axe was already busy
amongst them, and the trunks of giant oaks were prostrate on the
ground. The tents of the General and his small staff were pitched on
the little plateau in which stood the house, and from it a very striking
and picturesque view of the city, with the White House, the Treasury,
the Post Office, Patent Office, and Capitol, was visible, and a wide
spread of country, studded with tents also as far as the eye could
reach, towards Maryland. There were only four small tents for the
whole of the head-quarters of the grand army of the Potomac, and in
front of one we found General M‘Dowell, seated in a chair, examining
some plans and maps. His personal staff, as far as I could judge,
consisted of Mr. Clarence Brown, who came over with me, and three
other officers, but there were a few connected with the departments
at work in the rooms of Arlington House. I made some remark on the
subject to the General, who replied that there was great jealousy on
the part of the civilians respecting the least appearance of display,
and that as he was only a brigadier, though he was in command of
such a large army, he was obliged to be content with a brigadier’s
staff. Two untidy-looking orderlies, with ill-groomed horses, near the
house, were poor substitutes for the force of troopers one would see
in attendance on a general in Europe but the use of the telegraph
obviates the necessity of employing couriers. I went over some of
the camps with the General. The artillery is the most efficient-looking
arm of the service, but the horses are too light, and the number of
the different calibres quite destructive to continuous efficiency in
action. Altogether I was not favourably impressed with what I saw,
for I had been led by reiterated statements to believe to some extent
the extravagant stories of the papers, and expected to find upwards
of 100,000 men in the highest state of efficiency, whereas there were
not more than a third of the number, and those in a very incomplete,
ill-disciplined state. Some of these regiments were called out under
the President’s proclamation for three months only, and will soon
have served their full time, and as it is very likely they will go home,
now the bubbles of national enthusiasm have all escaped, General
Scott is urged not to lose their services, but to get into Richmond
before they are disbanded.
It would scarcely be credited, were I not told it by General
M‘Dowell, that there is no such thing procurable as a decent map of
Virginia. He knows little or nothing of the country before him, more
than the general direction of the main roads, which are bad at the
best; and he can obtain no information, inasmuch as the enemy are
in full force all along his front, and he has not a cavalry officer
capable of conducting a reconnaissance, which would be difficult
enough in the best hands, owing to the dense woods which rise up in
front of his lines, screening the enemy completely. The Confederates
have thrown up very heavy batteries at Manassas, about thirty miles
away, where the railway from the West crosses the line to Richmond,
and I do not think General M‘Dowell much likes the look of them, but
the cry for action is so strong the President cannot resist it.
On my way back I rode through the woods of Arlington, and came
out on a quadrangular earthwork, called Fort Corcoran, which is
garrisoned by the 69th Irish, and commands the road leading to an
aqueduct and horse-bridge over the Potomac. The regiment is
encamped inside the fort, which would be a slaughter-pen if exposed
to shell-fire. The streets were neat, the tents protected from the sun
by shades of evergreens and pine boughs. One little door, like that of
an ice-house, half buried in the ground, was opened by one of the
soldiers, who was showing it to a friend, when my attention was
more particularly attracted by a sergeant, who ran forward in great
dudgeon, exclaiming “Dempsey! Is that you going into the ‘magazine’
wid yer pipe lighted?” I rode away with alacrity.
In the course of my ride I heard occasional dropping shots in the
camp. To my looks of inquiry, an engineer officer said quietly, “They
are volunteers shooting themselves.” The number of accidents from
the carelessness of the men is astonishing; in every day’s paper
there is an account of deaths and wounds caused by the discharge
of firearms in the tents.
 Whilst I was at Arlington House, walking through the camp
attached to head-quarters, I observed a tall red-bearded officer
seated on a chair in front of one of the tents, who bowed as I passed
him, and as I turned to salute him, my eye was caught by the
apparition of a row of Palmetto buttons down his coat. One of the
officers standing by said, “Let me introduce you to Captain Taylor,
from the other side.” It appears that he came in with a flag of truce,
bearing a despatch from Jefferson Davis to President Lincoln,
countersigned by General Beauregard at Manassas. Just as I left
Arlington, a telegraph was sent from General Scott to send Captain
Taylor, who rejoices in the name of Tom, over to his quarters.
The most absurd rumours were flying about the staff, one of whom
declared very positively that there was going to be a compromise,
and that Jeff Davis had made an overture for peace. The papers are
filled with accounts of an action in Missouri, at a place called
Carthage, between the Federals commanded by Colonel Sigel,
consisting for the most part of Germans, and the Confederates under
General Parsons, in which the former were obliged to retreat,
although it is admitted the State troops were miserably armed, and
had most ineffective artillery, whilst their opponents had every
advantage in both respects, and were commanded by officers of
European experience. Captain Taylor had alluded to the news in a
jocular way to me, and said, “I hope you will tell the people in
England we intend to whip the Lincolnites in the same fashion
wherever we meet them,” a remark which did not lead me to believe
there was any intention on the part of the Confederates to surrender
so easily.
July 9th.—Late last night the President told General Scott to send
Captain Taylor back to the Confederate lines, and he was
accordingly escorted to Arlington in a carriage, and thence returned
without any answer to Mr. Davis’s letter, the nature of which has not
transpired.
A swarm of newspaper correspondents has settled down upon
Washington, and great are the glorifications of the high-toned
paymasters, gallant doctors, and subalterns accomplished in the art
of war, who furnish minute items to my American brethren, and
provide the yeast which overflows in many columns; but the
Government experience the inconvenience of the smallest
movements being chronicled for the use of the enemy, who, by
putting one thing and another together, are no doubt enabled to
collect much valuable information. Every preparation is being made
to put the army on a war footing, to provide them with shoes,
ammunition waggons, and horses.
I had the honour of dining with General Scott, who has moved to
new quarters, near the War Department, and met General Fremont,
who is designated, according to rumour, to take command of an
important district in the West, and to clear the right bank of the
Mississippi and the course of the Missouri. “The Pathfinder” is a
strong Republican and Abolitionist, whom the Germans delight to
honour—a man with a dreamy, deep blue eye, a gentlemanly
address, pleasant features, and an active frame, but without the
smallest external indication of extraordinary vigour, intelligence, or
ability; if he has military genius, it must come by intuition, for
assuredly he has no professional acquirements or experience. Two
or three members of Congress, and the General’s staff, and Mr.
Bigelow, completed the company. The General has become visibly
weaker since I first saw him. He walks down to his office, close at
hand, with difficulty; returns a short time before dinner, and reposes;
and when he has dismissed his guests at an early hour, or even
before he does so, stretches himself on his bed, and then before
midnight rouses himself to look at despatches or to transact any
necessary business. In case of an action it is his intention to proceed
to the field in a light carriage, which is always ready for the purpose,
with horses and driver; nor is he unprepared with precedents of great
military commanders who have successfully conducted
engagements under similar circumstances.
Although the discussion of military questions and of politics was
eschewed, incidental allusions were made to matters going on
around us, and I thought I could perceive that the General regarded
the situation with much more apprehension than the politicians, and
that his influence extended itself to the views of his staff. General
Fremont’s tone was much more confident. Nothing has become
known respecting the nature of Mr. Davis’s communication to
President Lincoln, but the fact of his sending it at all is looked upon
as a piece of monstrous impertinence. The General is annoyed and
distressed by the plundering propensities of the Federal troops, who
have been committing terrible depredations on the people of Virginia.
It is not to be supposed, however, that the Germans, who have
entered upon this campaign as mercenaries, will desist from so
profitable and interesting a pursuit as the detection of Secesh
sentiments, chickens, watches, horses, and dollars, I mentioned that
I had seen some farm-houses completely sacked close to the
aqueduct. The General merely said, “It is deplorable!” and raised up
his hands as if in disgust. General Fremont, however, said, “I
suppose you are familiar with similar scenes in Europe. I hear the
allies were not very particular with respect to private property in
Russia”—a remark which unfortunately could not be gainsaid. As I
was leaving the General’s quarters, Mr. Blair, accompanied by the
President, who was looking more anxious than I had yet seen him,
drove up, and passed through a crowd of soldiers, who had evidently
been enjoying themselves. One of them called out, “Three cheers for
General Scott!” and I am not quite sure the President did not join
him.
July 10th.—To-day was spent in a lengthy excursion along the
front of the camp in Virginia, round by the chain bridge which
crosses the Potomac about four miles from Washington.
The Government have been coerced, as they say, by the safety of
the Republic, to destroy the liberty of the press, which is guaranteed
by the Constitution, and this is not the first instance in which the
Constitution of the United States will be made nominis umbra. The
telegraph, according to General Scott’s order, confirmed by the
Minister of War, Simon Cameron, is to convey no despatches
respecting military movements not permitted by the General; and to-
day the newspaper correspondents have agreed to yield obedience
to the order, reserving to themselves a certain freedom of detail in
writing their despatches, and relying on the Government to publish
the official accounts of all battles very speedily. They will break this
agreement if they can, and the Government will not observe their
part of the bargain. The freedom of the press, as I take it, does not
include the right to publish news hostile to the cause of the country in
which it is published; neither can it involve any obligation on the part
of Government to publish despatches which may be injurious to the
party they represent. There is a wide distinction between the
publication of news which is known to the enemy as soon as to the
friends of the transmitters, and the utmost freedom of expression
concerning the acts of the Government or the conduct of past
events; but it will be difficult to establish any rule to limit or extend
the boundaries to which discussion can go without mischief, and in
effect the only solution of the difficulty in a free country seems to be
to grant the press free licence, in consideration of the enormous aid
it affords in warning the people of their danger, in animating them
with the news of their successes, and in sustaining the Government
in their efforts to conduct the war.
The most important event to-day is the passage of the Loan Bill,
which authorises Mr. Chase to borrow, in the next year, a sum of
£50,000,000, on coupons, with interest at 7 per cent, and
irredeemable for twenty years—the interest being guaranteed on a
pledge of the Customs duties. I just got into the House in time to
hear Mr. Vallandigham, who is an ultra-democrat, and very nearly a
secessionist, conclude a well-delivered argumentative address. He is
a tall, slight man, of a bilious temperament, with light flashing eyes,
dark hair and complexion, and considerable oratorical power. “Deem
me ef I wouldn’t just ride that Vallandiggaim on a reay-al,” quoth a
citizen to his friend, as the speaker sat down, amid a few feeble
expressions of assent. Mr. Chase has also obtained the consent of
the Lower House to his bill for closing the Southern ports by the
decree of the President, but I hear some more substantial measures
are in contemplation for that purpose. Whilst the House is finding the
money the Government are preparing to spend it, and they have
obtained the approval of the Senate to the enrolment of half a million
of men, and the expenditure of one hundred millions of dollars to
carry on the war.
I called on Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War. The small brick
house of two stories, with long passages, in which the American
Mars prepares his bolts, was, no doubt, large enough for the 20,000
men who constituted the armed force on land of the great Republic,
but it is not sufficient to contain a tithe of the contractors who haunt
its precincts, fill all the lobbies and crowd into every room. With some
risk to coat-tails, I squeezed through iron-masters, gun-makers,
clothiers, shoemakers, inventors, bakers, and all that genus which
fattens on the desolation caused by an army in the field, and was
introduced to Mr. Cameron’s room, where he was seated at a desk
surrounded by people, who were also grouped round two gentlemen
as clerks in the same small room. “I tell you, General Cameron, that
the way in which the loyal men of Missouri have been treated is a
disgrace to this Government,” shouted out a big, black, burly man—“I
tell you so, sir.” “Well, General,” responded Mr. Cameron, quietly, “so
you have several times. Will you, once for all, condescend to
particulars?” “Yes, sir; you and the Government have disregarded
our appeals. You have left us to fight our own battles. You have not
sent us a cent——” “There, General, I interrupt you. You say we
have sent you no money,” said Mr. Cameron, very quietly. “Mr. Jones
will be good enough to ask Mr. Smith to step in here.” Before Mr.
Smith came in, however, the General, possibly thinking some
member of the press was present, rolled his eyes in a Nicotian
frenzy, and perorated: “The people of the State of Missouri, sir, will
power-out every drop of the blood which only flows to warm patriotic
hearts in defence of the great Union, which offers freedom to the
enslaved of mankind, and a home to persecuted progress, and a
few-ture to civil-zation. We demand, General Cameron, in the neame
of the great Western State——” Here Mr. Smith came in, and Mr.
Cameron said, “I want you to tell me what disbursements, if any,
have been sent by this department to the State of Missouri.” Mr.
Smith was quick at figures, and up in his accounts, for he drew out a
little memorandum book, and replied (of course, I can’t tell the exact
sum), “General, there has been sent, as by vouchers, to Missouri,
since the beginning of the levies, six hundred and seventy thousand
dollars and twenty-three cents.” The General looked crestfallen, but
he was equal to the occasion, “These sums may have been sent, sir,
but they have not been received. I declare in the face of——” “Mr.
Smith will show you the vouchers, General, and you can then take
any steps needful against the parties who have misappropriated
them.”
“That is only a small specimen of what we have to go through with
our people,” said the Minister, as the General went off with a lofty
toss of his head, and then gave me a pleasant sketch of the nature
of the applications and interviews which take up the time and clog
the movements of an American statesman. “These State
organisations give us a great deal of trouble.” I could fully
understand that they did so. The immediate business that I had with
Mr. Cameron—he is rarely called General now that he is Minister of
War—was to ask him to give me authority to draw rations at cost
price, in case the army took the field before I could make
arrangements, and he seemed very well disposed to accede; “but I
must think about it, for I shall have all our papers down upon me if I
grant you any facility which they do not get themselves.” After I left
the War Department, I took a walk to Mr. Seward’s, who was out. In
passing by President’s Square, I saw a respectably-dressed man up
in one of the trees, cutting-off pieces of the bark, which his friends
beneath caught up eagerly. I could not help stopping to ask what
was the object of the proceeding. “Why, sir, this is the tree Dan
Sickles shot Mr. —— under. I think it’s quite a remarkable spot.”
July 11th.—The diplomatic circle is so totus teres atque rotundas,
that few particles of dirt stick on its periphery from the road over
which it travels. The radii are worked from different centres, often far
apart, and the tires and naves often fly out in wide divergence; but
for all social purposes is a circle, and a very pleasant one. When one
sees M. de Stoeckle speaking to M. Mercier, or joining in with Baron
Gerolt and M. de Lisboa, it is safer to infer that a little social re-union
is at hand for a pleasant civilised discussion of ordinary topics, some
music, a rubber, and a dinner, than to resolve with the New York
Correspondent, “that there is reason to believe that a diplomatic
movement of no ordinary significance is on foot, and that the
ministers of Russia, France, and Prussia have concerted a plan of
action with the representative of Brazil, which must lead to
extraordinary complications, in view of the temporary
embarrassments which distract our beloved country. The Minister of
England has held aloof from these reunions for a sinister purpose no
doubt, and we have not failed to discover that the emissary of
Austria, and the representative of Guatemala have abstained from
taking part in these significant demonstrations. We tell the haughty
nobleman who represents Queen Victoria, on whose son we so
lately lavished the most liberal manifestations of our good will, to
beware. The motives of the Court of Vienna, and of the republic of
Guatemala, in ordering their representatives not to join in the reunion
which we observed at three o’clock to-day, at the corner of
Seventeenth Street and One, are perfectly transparent; but we call
on Mr. Seward instantly to demand of Lord Lyons a full and ample
explanation of his conduct on the occasion, or the transmission of his
papers. There is no harm in adding, that we have every reason to
think our good ally of Russia, and the minister of the astute monarch,
who is only watching an opportunity of leading a Franco-American
army to the Tower of London and Dublin Castle, have already moved
their respective Governments to act in the premises.”
That paragraph, with a good heading, would sell several
thousands of the “New York Stabber” to-morrow.
July 12th.—There are rumours that the Federals, under Brigadier
M‘Clellan, who have advanced into Western Virginia, have gained
some successes; but so far it seems to have no larger dimensions
than the onward raid of one clan against another in the Highlands.
And whence do rumours come? From Government departments,
which, like so many Danaes in the clerks’ rooms, receive the visits of
the auriferous Jupiters of the press, who condense themselves into
purveyors of smashes, slings, baskets of champagne, and dinners.
M‘Clellan is, however, considered a very steady and respectable
professional soldier. A friend of his told me to-day one of the most
serious complaints the Central Illinois Company had against him was
that, during the Italian war, he seemed to forget their business; and
that he was busied with maps stretched out on the floor, whereupon
he, superincumbent, penned out the points of battle and strategy
when he ought to have been attending to passenger trains and
traffic. That which was flat blasphemy in a railway office may be
amazingly approved in the field.
 July 13th.—I have had a long day’s ride through the camps of the
various regiments across the Potomac, and at this side of it, which
the weather did not render very agreeable to myself or the poor hack
that I had hired for the day, till my American Quartermaine gets me a
decent mount. I wished to see with my own eyes what is the real
condition of the army which the North have sent down to the
Potomac, to undertake such a vast task as the conquest of the
South. The Northern papers describe it as a magnificent force,
complete in all respects, well-disciplined, well-clad, provided with fine
artillery, and with every requirement to make it effective for all military
operations in the field.
In one word, then, they are grossly and utterly ignorant of what an
army is or should be. In the first place, there are not, I should think,
30,000 men of all sorts available for the campaign. The papers
estimate it at any number from 50,000 to 100,000, giving the
preference to 75,000. In the next place, their artillery is miserably
deficient; they have not, I should think, more than five complete
batteries, or six batteries, including scratch guns, and these are of
different calibres, badly horsed, miserably equipped, and provided
with the worst set of gunners and drivers which I, who have seen the
Turkish field-guns, ever beheld. They have no cavalry, only a few
scarecrow-men, who would dissolve partnership with their steeds at
the first serious combined movement, mounted in high saddles, on
wretched mouthless screws, and some few regulars from the
frontiers, who may be good for Indians, but who would go over like
ninepins at a charge from Punjaubee irregulars. Their transport is
tolerably good, but inadequate; they have no carriage for reserve
ammunition; the commissariat drivers are civilians, under little or no
control; the officers are unsoldierly-looking men; the camps are dirty
to excess; the men are dressed in all sorts of uniforms; and from
what I hear, I doubt if any of these regiments have ever performed a
brigade evolution together, or if any of the officers know what it is to
deploy a brigade from column into line. They are mostly three
months’ men, whose time is nearly up. They were rejoicing to-day
over the fact that it was so, and that they had kept the enemy from
Washington “without a fight.” And it is with this rabblement that the
North propose not only to subdue the South, but according to some
of their papers, to humiliate Great Britain, and conquer Canada
afterwards.
I am opposed to national boasting, but I do firmly believe that
10,000 British regulars, or 12,000 French, with a proper
establishment of artillery and cavalry, would not only entirely repulse
this army with the greatest ease, under competent commanders, but
that they could attack them and march into Washington over them or
with them whenever they pleased. Not that Frenchman or
Englishman is perfection, but that the American of this army knows
nothing of discipline, and what is more, cares less for it.
Major-General M‘Clellan—I beg his pardon for styling him
Brigadier—has really been successful. By a very well-conducted and
rather rapid march, he was enabled to bring superior forces to bear
on some raw levies under General Garnett (who came over with me
in the steamer), which fled after a few shots, and were utterly routed,
when their gallant commander fell, in an abortive attempt to rally
them by the banks of the Cheat river. In this “great battle” M‘Clellan’s
loss is less than 30 killed and wounded, and the Confederates loss is
less than 100. But the dispersion of such guerilla bands has the most
useful effect among the people of the district; and M‘Clellan has
done good service, especially as his little victory will lead to the
discomfiture of all the Secessionists in the valley of the Keanawha,
and in the valley of Western Virginia. I left Washington this afternoon,
with the Sanitary Commissioners, for Baltimore, in order to visit the
Federal camps at Fortress Monroe, to which we proceeded down the
Chesapeake the same night.
 CHAPTER XI.

Fortress Monroe—General Butler—Hospital accommodation—Wounded

soldiers—Aristocratic pedigrees—A great gun—Newport News—
Fraudulent contractors—General Butler—Artillery practice—Contraband
negroes—Confederate lines—Tombs of American loyalists—Troops and
contractors—Durevy’s New York Zouaves—Military calculations—A
voyage by steamer to Annapolis.

July 14th.—At six o’clock this morning the steamer arrived at the
wharf under the walls of Fortress Monroe, which presented a very
different appearance from the quiet of its aspect when first I saw it,
some months ago. Camps spread around it, the parapets lined with
sentries, guns looking out towards the land, lighters and steamers
alongside the wharf, a strong guard at the end of the pier, passes to
be scrutinised and permits to be given. I landed with the members of
the Sanitary Commission, and repaired to a very large pile of
buildings, called “The Hygeia Hotel,” for once on a time Fortress
Monroe was looked upon as the resort of the sickly, who required
bracing air and an abundance of oysters; it is now occupied by the
wounded in the several actions and skirmishes which have taken
place, particularly at Bethel; and it is so densely crowded that we
had difficulty in procuring the use of some small dirty rooms to dress
in. As the business of the Commission was principally directed to
ascertain the state of the hospitals, they considered it necessary in
the first instance to visit General Butler, the commander of the post,
who has been recommending himself to the Federal Government by
his activity ever since he came down to Baltimore, and the whole
body marched to the fort, crossing the drawbridge after some parley
with the guard, and received permission, on the production of
passes, to enter the court.
 The interior of the work covers a space of about seven or eight
acres, as far as I could judge, and is laid out with some degree of
taste; rows of fine trees border the walks through the grass plots; the
officers’ quarters, neat and snug, are surrounded with little patches
of flowers, and covered with creepers. All order and neatness,
however, were fast disappearing beneath the tramp of mailed feet,
for at least 1200 men had pitched their tents inside the place. We
sent in our names to the General, who lives in a detached house
close to the sea face of the fort, and sat down on a bench under the
shade of some trees, to avoid the excessive heat of the sun until the
commander of the place could receive the Commissioners. He was
evidently in no great hurry to do so. In about half an hour an aide-de-
camp came out to say that the General was getting up, and that he
would see us after breakfast. Some of the Commissioners, from
purely sanitary considerations, would have been much better
pleased to have seen him at breakfast, as they had only partaken of
a very light meal on board the steamer at five o’clock in the morning;
but we were interested meantime by the morning parade of a portion
of the garrison, consisting of 300 regulars, a Massachusetts’
volunteer battalion, and the 2nd New York Regiment.
It was quite refreshing to the eye to see the cleanliness of the
regulars—their white gloves and belts, and polished buttons,
contrasted with the slovenly aspect of the volunteers; but, as far as
the material went, the volunteers had by far the best of the
comparison. The civilians who were with me did not pay much
attention to the regulars, and evidently preferred the volunteers,
although they could not be insensible to the magnificent drum-major
who led the band of the regulars. Presently General Butler came out
of his quarters, and walked down the lines, followed by a few
officers. He is a stout, middle-aged man, strongly built, with coarse
limbs, his features indicative of great shrewdness and craft, his
forehead high, the elevation being in some degree due perhaps to
the want of hair; with a strong obliquity of vision, which may perhaps
have been caused by an injury, as the eyelid hangs with a peculiar
droop over the organ.
 The General, whose manner is quick, decided, and abrupt, but not
at all rude or unpleasant, at once acceded to the wishes of the
Sanitary Commissioners, and expressed his desire to make my stay
at the fort as agreeable and useful as he could. “You can first visit
the hospitals in company with these gentlemen, and then come over
with me to our camp, where I will show you everything that is to be
seen. I have ordered a steamer to be in readiness to take you to
Newport News.” He speaks rapidly, and either affects or possesses
great decision. The Commissioners accordingly proceeded to make
the most of their time in visiting the Hygeia Hotel, being
accompanied by the medical officers of the garrison.
The rooms, but a short time ago occupied by the fair ladies of
Virginia, when they came down to enjoy the sea breezes, were now
crowded with Federal soldiers, many of them suffering from the loss
of limb or serious wounds, others from the worst form of camp
disease. I enjoyed a small national triumph over Dr. Bellows, the
chief of the Commissioners, who is of the “sangre azul” of
Yankeeism, by which I mean that he is a believer, not in the
perfectibility, but in the absolute perfection, of New England nature,
which is the only human nature that is not utterly lost and abandoned
—Old England nature, perhaps, being the worst of all. We had been
speaking to the wounded men in several rooms, and found most of
them either in the listless condition consequent upon exhaustion, or
with that anxious air which is often observable on the faces of the
wounded when strangers approach. At last we came into a room in
which two soldiers were sitting up, the first we had seen, reading the
newspapers. Dr. Bellows asked where they came from; one was
from Concord, the other from Newhaven. “You see, Mr. Russell,” said
Dr. Bellows, “how our Yankee soldiers spend their time. I knew at
once they were Americans when I saw them reading newspapers.”
One of them had his hand shattered by a bullet, the other was
suffering from a gun-shot wound through the body. “Where were you
hit?” I inquired of the first. “Well,” he said, “I guess my rifle went off
when I was cleaning it in camp.” “Were you wounded at Bethel?” I
asked of the second. “No, sir,” he replied; “I got this wound from a
comrade, who discharged his piece by accident in one of the tents
as I was standing outside.” “So,” said I, to Dr. Bellows, “whilst the
Britishers and Germans are engaged with the enemy, you Americans
employ your time shooting each other!”
These men were true mercenaries, for they were fighting for
money—I mean the strangers. One poor fellow from Devonshire
said, as he pointed to his stump, “I wish I had lost it for the sake of
the old island, sir,” paraphrasing Sarsfield’s exclamation as he lay
dying on the field. The Americans were fighting for the combined
excellences and strength of the States of New England, and of the
rest of the Federal power over the Confederates, for they could not
in their heart of hearts believe the Old Union could be restored by
force of arms. Lovers may quarrel and may reunite, but if a blow is
struck there is no redintegratio amoris possible again. The
newspapers and illustrated periodicals which they read were the
pabulum that fed the flames of patriotism incessantly. Such capacity
for enormous lying, both in creation and absorption, the world never
heard. Sufficient for the hour is the falsehood.
There were lady nurses in attendance on the patients; who
followed—let us believe, as I do, out of some higher motive than the
mere desire of human praise—the example of Miss Nightingale. I
loitered behind in the rooms, asking many questions respecting the
nationality of the men, in which the members of the Sanitary
Commission took no interest, and I was just turning into one near the
corner of the passage when I was stopped by a loud smack. A young
Scotchman was dividing his attention between a basin of soup and a
demure young lady from Philadelphia, who was feeding him with a
spoon, his only arm being engaged in holding her round the waist, in
order to prevent her being tired, I presume. Miss Rachel, or
Deborah, had a pair of very pretty blue eyes, but they flashed very
angrily from under her trim little cap at the unwitting intruder, and
then she said, in severest tones, “Will you take your medicine, or
not?” Sandy smiled, and pretended to be very penitent.
When we returned with the doctors from our inspection we walked
round the parapets of the fortress, why so called I know not, because
it is merely a fort. The guns and mortars are old-fashioned and
heavy, with the exception of some new-fashioned and very heavy
Columbiads, which are cast-iron 8-, 10-, and 12-inch guns, in which I
have no faith whatever. The armament is not sufficiently powerful to
prevent its interior being searched out by the long range fire of ships
with rifle guns, or mortar boats; but it would require closer and harder
work to breach the masses of brick and masonry which constitute
the parapets and casemates. The guns, carriages, rammers, shot,
were dirty, rusty, and neglected; but General Butler told me he was
busy polishing up things about the fortress as fast as he could.
Whilst we were parading these hot walls in the sunshine, my
companions were discussing the question of ancestry. It appears
your New Englander is very proud of his English descent from good
blood, and it is one of their isms in the Yankee States that they are
the salt of the British people and the true aristocracy of blood and
family, whereas we in the isles retain but a paltry share of the blue
blood defiled by incessant infiltrations of the muddy fluid of the outer
world. This may be new to us Britishers, but is a Q. E. D. If a
gentleman left Europe 200 years ago, and settled with his kin and
kith, intermarrying his children with their equals, and thus
perpetuating an ancient family, it is evident he may be regarded as
the founder of a much more honourable dynasty than the relative
who remained behind him, and lost the old family place, and sunk
into obscurity. A singular illustration of the tendency to make much of
themselves may be found in the fact, that New England swarms with
genealogical societies and bodies of antiquaries, who delight in
reading papers about each other’s ancestors, and tracing their
descent from Norman or Saxon barons and earls. The Virginians
opposite, who are flouting us with their Confederate flag from
Sewall’s Point, are equally given to the “genus et proavos.”
At the end of our promenade round the ramparts, Lieutenant
Butler, the General’s nephew and aide-de-camp, came to tell us the
boat was ready, and we met His Excellency in the court-yard,
whence we walked down to the wharf. On our way, General Butler
called my attention to an enormous heap of hollow iron lying on the
sand, which was the Union gun that is intended to throw a shot of
some 350 lbs. weight or more, to astonish the Confederates at
Sewall’s Point opposite, when it is mounted. This gun, if I mistake
not, was made after the designs of Captain Rodman, of the United