The phrase that popped into my head was: we raised an army …

And when I say "we" I mean white Christian patriarchal American culture. The same kind of martial "manhood" culture that Kristen Kobes du Mez talks about in Jesus and John Wayne.

In that book she's talking about the specifically evangelical version of the culture, but one of the things that's happened there, is that mainstream patriarchal culture is often pretty much identical to evangelical patriarchal culture with the serial numbers (slightly) filed off

But that book helped clarify what the leaders of that movement thought they were doing, and they thought they were raising warriors, men who would fight for God and Country (& the honor of pure womanhood) in the coming war.

WHAT coming war? Never mind. THE war. You know.

THE war is against communism, or against terrorists, or against Muslims, or against Foreign Devils of Unspecified Origin.

It's against Urban Violence and Liberal Traitors and Lizard People, the apocalyptic fighting in the street which is surely coming.

There was this thread a while back, I don't remember who wrote it, but was about how a certain kind of man loves to shout to the heavens how he's willing to lay down his life for his kids! Except he won't wear a goddamn mask to the grocery store.

But part of that is because the same people who raised him to be a WARRIOR also told him not to wear a mask. I mean, if they told him TO wear a mask, he'd do it, he's pretty obedient to the "proper" authorities.

And if you look at the men who were leaders in this movement, the ones IN the book Jesus and John Wayne, they were obviously, in their own twisted way, entirely sincere.

They really did believe that the strength of our nation rests on the strength of a nation full of a certain kind of man leading all their little nuclear families in a certain kind of way, and that everything from godless communism to liberal pansyism was a serious threat.

They really believed that unless our nation was led by that certain kind of man at every level, it would crumble from within and then get attacked from without.

The church had been constantly refining the image of True God's Manly Man over the past 40 years, always contrasting him against a devil (a foreigner, an urban "thug") or a sissy (a "sensitive man" or a "pajama boy" or what have you)

Within the church, there have been debates and conflicts, and after every conflict (should the Good Christian Man be a "tender warrior" or is "tender" too sissy?) the ideal of the Good Christian Man emerged as MORE of a toxic asshole (yes, "tender" is FAR too sissy!)

The Real Man loves guns and hates feelings! Because he is a warrior! He must be always at the ready! Ready to fight!

Fight what, though?

Fight who?

Fight where?

Where is this battlefront that we need all these warriors for?

Most of our real problems, from global warming to the pandemic, are not problems that can be solved by shooting at something. A gun will not feed your family (unless you have a very rural lifestyle). A gun won't get you a job (unless you make guns or something, I guess)

There's almost no threat these "warriors" actually face, for themselves or their families, that can actually be solved in any practical way by, uh, warrioring.

So they invent battlefields.
Manufacture places where they can waddle down the street draped with guns and believe, deep in their hearts, that they are truly warriors for God and Country and the Honor of Pure Womanhood.

In a way, it makes sense. They were TOLD they were needed to fight a war, after all. Then the war never came.

These men were honed as weapons -- that's what they think they are, and that's what the men who created thought they would be -- but the men who created them didn't know what they were doing either. They created bad weapons for a foul purpose.

They haven't been "honed" in the way they like to imagine, like Batman at the end of a training montage or whatever. They're not hard and fast and highly skilled.

In this culture, being "honed" as a warrior means that's your only mode of interaction & only avenue for self-worth. You are a warrior, so your only emotions are rage and lust. You are at war, so everyone is either on your side, or fighting for the enemy.

So you get a bunch of guys and you train them to be "warriors" and you give them nothing real to fight, they become like an autoimmune disease & start to attack their host. Their own country, their own communities. Family, friends, fellow citizens.

It explodes into racism, white nationalism, Trumpism, murderous misogyny, mass shooters, think of any extravagantly terrible thing a white man has done in the past 40 years and you can trace it back to this culture, of being a warrior for nothing.

That's where purely religious evangelical Trumpism and "warrior culture" white male rage Trumpism collide, with this culture that always had a hole in the center of it, that Trump was the first person to deliberately try to fill.

White evangelicals spent years becoming more and more cultlike, but they were a cult with no cult leader -- until Donald Trump. https://t.co/poqU8hpWeM

That empty place -- that place where a cult leader can be inserted -- is what DJT occupies. And DJT is such an incredibly poor Jesus substitute that it boggles the imagination that evangelicals could embrace him as such, but --
— McJulie is Still Spooky (@mcjulie) August 11, 2019

And white "warrior" manhood spent years being schooled as soldiers with nothing to fight, a war that didn't exist until Trump came along and said, "this is it, I am the war, fight for me"

They're going to lose, although who knows how much damage they'll manage to do before they do.

But, unless we change our culture in a significant way, those guys will still be out there. Warriors for nothing, just LOOKING to pick a fight with somebody.

I guess that's the end of the thread. Happy Mardi Gras Season everybody, and here's to a better future.

Addendum: that thread I was looking for earlier. https://t.co/O2i2mFWzDq

Here it is! She also wrote that amazing pro choice thread (pinned).https://t.co/oBH12SGpJE
— Probably Unhelpful (@turningaphrase) January 6, 2021

Addendum: also, this is why I say they will lose. 10,000 people is a lot of people! But this is people coming from all over. BLM could get 10,000 people to show up *in Seattle alone*
https://t.co/Mr45T7m7tL

It takes around a half million human bodies to fill the Washington mall. The #TrumpRally has attracted perhaps 10,000 https://t.co/nkPhkbZgK8
— Priscilla Huff (@phuffdaddy) January 6, 2021

I'm sorry, I was underselling it. 60,000 people in Seattle alone. And that wasn't even everybody! @paulcarp13 and I had cold symptoms and stayed away.
https://t.co/BI5WhTnpNW

The phrase that popped into my head was: we raised an army to fight nothing

More from Society

You May Also Like