The video above is our breakdown of the Jordan Peterson interview on Tucker Carlson’s show (Buy Peterson’s excellent book here). They’re talking about the Florida shooting, but it’s really about the state of boys today.
One important point is nihilism.
This is the belief that life is meaningless. It’s hopelessness and despair. Life is hard. There’s a lot of evil. A lot of bad things happening. So it’s easy to see how one could fall into nihilism and cynicism. If life is bad, then it’s better to just conclude that there is nothing of value anyway.
You know kids who are isolated in school from their peers and from society they can spiral deeper and deeper into despair and hopelessness and then end up with nihilistic views that nothing matters! Life doesn’t matter! My life doesn’t matter and no one else’s does.
So how do we eliminate this? Give kids purpose. Create a culture that encourages unity and a sense of purpose and meaning to life and to our existence. This traditionally was done with God.
I came across a Marine Corps Field Manual. I originally thought it was a WWII Era, but it’s not, it’s the modern one. There’s a section at the end about the will to survive. What do you do if you’re stuck and cornered and in a seemingly hopeless situation and you think you’re going to die?
Remember your PURPOSE:
I will never forget that I am an American fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.
A Marine stuck and hopeless, easy to become nihilistic right? Nothing matters anymore. This field manual tells you to remember what matters. It reminds you that something DOES matter. Remember who you are and why you do it.
The rest of it’s all about God, “pray for your God’s help, strength, wisdom, and rescue. Talk to your God. Give thanks that God is with you. Ask for God’s help. Pray for protection and a positive outcome. Remember scripture verses, hymns, repeat them to yourself and to God. Praise God. Give thanks because God is bigger than your circumstances. God will see you through no matter what circumstances. The field manual says that hope comes from the belief in heaven. It advises Marines to appoint a religious leader amongst themselves, discuss what’s important in your life, share scriptures and songs. Pray for each other. Do you understand? It says to have worship services with each other, write down scriptures and songs that you remember, encourage each other, while waiting to be rescued. Remember that your God loves you.
Talk to your God.
(2) Give thanks that God is with you.
(3) Ask for God’s help.
(4) Pray for protection and a positive outcome. Remember scripture, verses, or hymns; repeat them to yourself and to your God.
Praise God and give thanks because—
(1) God is bigger than your circumstances.
(2) God will see you through (no matter what happens).
(3) Hope comes from a belief in heaven and/or an after-life.
(1) Identify or appoint a religious lay leader.
(2) Discuss what is important to you.
(3) Share scriptures and songs.
(4) Pray for each other.
(5) Try to have worship services.
(6) Write down scriptures and songs that you remember.
(7) Encourage each other while waiting for rescue, remember—
(a) Your God loves you.
(b) Praise your God.
This is the back of the modern day Marine Corps Field Manual.
This is what our society used to unite behind and is there any wonder if you remove God from our culture, that people are more cynical and nihilistic than ever before? Bad things happen because of it.
There’s a great book, Raising a Modern Day Knight. It’s about raising boys in men and how boys need a vision for manhood, they need a code of conduct, they need a transcendent cause.
Without these three things, boys drift. Again, we’re talking about this because there was a deadly school shooter, but this is a massive problem for most every boy in every school across the entire country. They’re’ not going to be school shooters, but there is a lot of other destructive behavior that’s going on because these are boys’ drifting without purpose.
As Peterson said, “responsibility is what gives life meaning.” This is why having kids is so much fun, and I don’t mean to say that having a kid is the only way that your life can have meaning or responsibility, but the best part of having kids is that it takes you from being the center of your existence to something else being the center of your existence. This is good for you. It’s good for your soul.
It’s bad to be selfish and live selfishly. It’s bad to be selfish and live selfishly. It’s good to be responsible for someone else, something else. It gives you meaning in this world.
It is a joy to metaphorically and sometimes literally eat last in your home. Wife eats first, your kids’ eat second, you’re last, because you’re responsible for other people. And that’s awesome!
The great Simon Sinek has a TED talk called Leaders Eat Last, and the idea is that if you’re a leader, you get a lot of perks and benefits, but then when times are tough, the deal is you eat last.
And there’s great joy in eating last, if it means your family lives and thrives.
This is a great post from J Ishiro Finny,
To quote Fight Club, “We’re a generation of men raised by women.” And the women who raised my generation had a saying: All men are pigs. But there’s another saying those same women were enamored with and that is: The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
So here we are, coming close to fifty years of single mothers raising their boys as if they were animals. Two generations of young men raised to believe they’re broken, immoral, and dangerous. That their natural state, if left unchecked and unmedicated, is a sexual ticking time bomb of rape and abuse. Half a century of academia peddling a grim version of history that holds your gender personally responsible for all the wrongs ever to have happened in the world. And a press, that at this very moment, is blaming YOU for every school shooting to have ever occurred.
After all this, how could there not be a crisis of masculinity?
So to the boys and young men of America, believe me when I say it isn’t you who should be apologizing for the state of our world today. This mess was set in motion long before you were born.
You are not bad.
You are not broken.
You are not inherently evil or a sexual abuser in waiting.
You are boys who were robbed of your right to be men.
All your life you’ve been told to act, think, and behave like women. To suppress your passions, your pride, your need to compete and drive to achieve.
Now society is crumbling around us.
Feminizing boys didn’t make better men. It’s resulted in broken homes and shattered families and record suicide rates. It’s destroying any notion of a healthy partnership between men and women, and is pushing us ever closer to total collapse of gender relations.
Boys, we don’t need you to be like women, the world has plenty of women, already.
What the world needs now more than ever is for you to be men…
Men have always been innovators, explores, defenders, and leaders.
But most importantly, men have always been fathers.
So to the boys and young men of America, please read this and take every word to heart.
The world needs you.