Is Masculinity Fascist?

In a recent interview published by The New Yorker, Jennifer Welch (host of the podcast I’ve Had It and a political commentator The New Yorker described as “A left-wing, atheist reality-TV host from Oklahoma [who] is one of the most popular liberal podcasters, channeling outrage with MAGA and with Democrats she views as complacent.”) made the claim that exploring the concept of the “idealized man” is a “part of fascism.”

Here at The Heroic Gent, we certainly are exploring the deep philosophy, bearing, and conduct of an idealized man—heroes, after all, are North Stars, without them, we are lost. We need to be real about our heroes, as I am in Cool Heroes for Boys, as that brings deeper insights into his codified philosophy, but without the exploration of an ideal, we are indeed on Plato’s ship of fools.

Before unpacking all this, let’s make sure we keep Welch’s claim in context:

“For some of us on the left, it's hard to absorb just how depraved these people are. But because I grew up in Oklahoma City around degrees of Republicans, from country club Republicans all the way to diehard MAGA, evangelical, spiritual warfare-type Republicans. You have to know what you're up against. And you have to be ruthless,” said Welch.

“Give me some examples and tell me who your allies are in that,” asked the interviewer at The New Yorker.

“Well, some examples would be: we have to go after these MAGA men. One example would be Jesse Watters. This man talks incessantly about masculinity. Joe Biden is not masculine because he sucks on soup. What kind of man sucks on a straw? He goes on and on and on so much about the idealized man. And that's a part of fascism, you know, propelling this form of toxic masculinity. Why are you so obsessed with men, Jesse Watters? What's all that about? Why are you so obsessed with trans people? Why are you thinking about genitals all the time?” she said.

We don’t go much into politics here. Philosophy in not the same thing as politics. We do explore the philosophy of manhood here, but politics tends to the superficial. Political positions can be representative—sometimes very much so—of a person’s philosophy (hence the term political philosophy), but political beliefs and actions are often in the moment and are subject to emotions akin to the support of a favorite team. So, despite Welch’s very political operating system, we’ll leave that aside and assume, as we must, there are people of good faith and meaning on all sides of the political spectrum.

Her attack, however, is only conveniently political. She makes the claim that going “on and on” about the “idealized man” is fascism to shut down, not to deepen, the conversation.

She clearly sees the manly—indeed, old-school gentlemanly—adherence to codified values as a threat to her preferred politics. Living by a creed is what an Heroic Gent does; he writes his own code based on values that last, based on things so time tested they have appeared in most (or all) real codes. This includes the Ten Commandments, but also so many other codes of honor. He then tries to live up to these ideals.

To her, though, this is “toxic masculinity,” which is another phrase devised not to make us think, as it falls apart upon the most cursory challenge, as she does not want to tackle moral absolutes.

A real code exhibited by an ideal is inconvenient to her open-ended zest for control, for power; indeed, how can an activist like Welch succeed when she keeps running into men who are in pursuit of an ideal? She can’t. Her anger is a symptom of the frustration that she can’t.

Men bold enough to follow an ideal know there are greater things than themselves. They know they must humbly and with strength stand up for what is really right. They must do this even when it might be against their temporary self interest to do so. Perhaps they need to risk their life to save a fool who didn’t wear a life jacket … whatever the case, they go against even their temporary best interest to pursue an ideal—and, as a result, achieve things that are really in their best interest (and in society’s best interest).

That Welch calls this fascism is actually very revealing—about her. She needs a word to chase all of this truth away. She can’t have an actual conversation with such a man about this ideal, as that would force her to confront the superficiality of her biases. So she uses a hard-to-define expletive to stop the conversation. She is done thinking and does not want her ideas challenged, as she knows how quickly her hateful ideas will fall apart.

As for us, we’ll keep exploring the ideal, thank you very much.