The Way of Men

by Jack Donovan

Masculinity is about being a man within a group of men. Above all things, masculinity is about what men want from each other.

The Way of Men is the way of that gang.

The fireteam-to-platoon sized gang is the smallest unit of us. Beyond us is them, and the line that separates us from them is a circle of trust.

Your role at the bloody edges of the boundary between us and them supersedes any role you have within the protected space.

Men respond to and admire the qualities that would make men useful and dependable in an emergency.

The Way of Men is a tactical ethos.

Strength, Courage, Mastery, and Honor.

The tactical virtues are unconcerned with abstract moral questions of universal right or wrong. What is right is what wins, and what is wrong is what loses, because losing is death and the end of everything that matters.

Strength, Courage, Mastery, and Honor are the alpha virtues of men all over the world. They are the fundamental virtues of men because without them, no “higher” virtues can be entertained.

Men aren’t wired to fight or cooperate; they are wired to fight and cooperate.

Understanding this ability to perceive and prioritize different levels of conflict is essential to understanding The Way of Men and the four tactical virtues. Men will constantly shift gears from in-group competition to competition between groups, or competition against an external threat.

Physical strength is the defining metaphor of manhood because strength is a defining characteristic of men.

The experience of being male is the experience of having greater strength, and strength must be exercised and demonstrated to be of any worth. When men will not or cannot exercise their strength or put it to use, strength is decorative and worthless.

Courage is kinetic. Courage initiates movement, action or fortitude. Courage exercises strength.

Courage implies a risk. It implies a potential for failure or the presence of danger. Courage is measured against danger. The greater the danger, the greater the courage. Running into a burning building beats telling off your boss. Telling off your boss is more courageous than writing a really mean anonymous note. Acts without meaningful consequences require little courage.

It is not the strongest man who will necessarily lead, it is the man who takes the lead who will lead.

This basic “push” is the spark of courage. If it isn’t sufficiently present in a man, I doubt higher forms of courage would even be possible.

These heroes have a push inside that keeps them coming back again and again after others would have given up.

A man who is obviously game can step ahead of a man who is not, simply because he can expect the man who is less game to yield to him.

Masculine men make it clear that they are to be taken seriously, that they have weight, that they won’t be pushed around. Men want other men to know that they will be “heavy” to move, and must be taken seriously.

Courage is the animating spirit of masculinity, and it is crucial to any meaningful definition of masculinity.

Courage is the will to risk harm in order to benefit oneself or others. In its most basic amoral form, courage is a willingness or passionate desire to fight or hold ground at any cost (gameness, heart, spirit, thumos). In its most developed, civilized and moral form courage is the considered and decisive willingness to risk harm to ensure the success or survival of a group or another person (courage, virtus, andreia).

One of the great tragedies of modernity is the lack of opportunity for men to become what they are, to do what they were bred to do, what their bodies want to do.

Mastery is a man’s desire and ability to cultivate and demonstrate proficiency and expertise in technics that aid in the exertion of will over himself, over nature, over women, and over other men.

It is mastery more often than brute strength that allows the elite to rule.

To be honored is to be respected by one’s peers.

Honor has always been about the esteem of groups of men.

In a survival band, it is tactically advantageous to maintain a reputation for being strong, courageous and masterful as a group.

Being good at being a man is about being willing and able to fulfill the natural role of men in a survival scenario.

A man who is more concerned with being a good man than being good at being a man makes a very well-behaved slave.

sparring—is part of learning to fight, and men ritualize play fighting with sport. In 1906 William James called for a “moral equivalent of war.” Putting aside the question of whether war is moral or immoral, the phrase “moral equivalent of war” captures our need to suppress and redirect primal masculinity in peacetime. James acknowledged that

Economic masculinity is demonstrated by taking risks and believing that you are competent enough to prevail.

In a recent column for Asia Times, Spengler argued that cultures facing their own imminent demise implode or lash out.

The true “crisis of masculinity” is the ongoing and ever-changing struggle to find an acceptable compromise between the primal gang masculinity that men have been selected for over the course of human evolutionary history, and the level of restraint required of men to maintain a desirable level of order in a given civilization.