The New Right and its 'Masculinity'
For Christians, seeking to compel virtue through a top-down centralized scheme of coercive government is not masculine, it's cowardly.
It’s really interesting how, when you look at certain factions of the New Right who have an obsession with an overly “masculine” view of Christianity in their politics, they really just want an easy life. They don’t want to evangelize or win over hearts and minds. They don’t want to deal with sacrifice or face persecution like Christians have done and will do (as minuscule as it really may be today, seeing as we live at the peak of human flourishing and freedom by any objective measure).
They don’t want to face people who think differently than they do—they don’t want to debate or convince or foster virtue. They want the state to do the work of virtue for them and coerce their views upon others, instead of doing the work of living a virtuous life and trying to lead others toward such a life within an order set on law and liberty.
That’s hard work, that’s Christian labor, and they want none of it.
This differs from those of us who are Christian and conservative and value freedom and liberty—who value our constitutional order and the ability to foster virtue in our families and communities. We know this comes with much sacrifice and hard work in a society such as ours, but we believe in freedom, ordered liberty, republican virtue, and the value of the work and sacrifice that comes with it—fundamentally Christian values harmonized with a free society.
Just like the progressive left, the New Right does not want to have to deal with the sacrifices and struggles of living in a pluralistic society or one that gives personal agency to freedom. They want the easy way out—they want compelled virtue, rather than evangelizing and cultivating virtue in our communities and amongst our circles of influence. They want the easy way out—forcing others to conform to their views of faith and morals and removing those with whom they disagree, rather than face difficult issues head-on. They want the easy way out.
What they want is not masculine—it’s cowardly and weak. Freedom conservatives and those like us know that living a life of virtue is not easy and that it may look different for others—that living in a society such as ours requires you to man up, work harder, and make peace with those who do you no harm but pray differently than you or don’t pray at all. It requires prudence and restorative order, not reactionary destruction and regime change. We know that life is not always easy and that standing up for principles sometimes comes at great personal cost.
That’s difficult. That’s hard work. That’s conservative.
André Béliveau is a political theorist and policy analyst based in DC. He is a graduate of Marist College, where he studied History, and is currently studying for his Master’s in Government at The Johns Hopkins University. @TheRealBeliveau
The Daily Saucer is our place for freelance contributors and editorial staff to offer short takes on the news cycle, quick observations on the issues, and brief thoughts on broader topics. The views offered in this space reflect only the personal views of the authors.
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I really appreciate this post and this project. I grew up in a conservative environment in Australia, and was educated at a private Christian boys' school, so I have an appreciation for the healthy expression of conservative values. As a young adult I had a spontaneous spiritual realization of oneness that radically changed my life's trajectory, and since then I've identified mostly as very progressive politically. Yet in recent years, I've been deeply alarmed at the authoritarianism that has captured the left, and find myself in resonance with certain conservative critiques of identitarian politics. In my own writing, I've felt called to push back against unhealthy leftist extremism to my mostly progressive audience, just as you are pointing out to your conservative audience unhealthy extremist tendencies on the right.
In my writing I've suggested that our current state of intense polarization can be understood as the surfacing of profound tensions between the masculine and feminine dimensions of the collective unconscious. The Right, with its emphasis on individual responsibility and self-determination, tends to hold more archetypally-masculine values, while the Left, with its emphasis on inclusion and compassion, tends to hold more archetypally-feminine values. I think that the extremism that has overtaken our politics on both right and left in recent years can be seen as expressions of the unhealthy or immature versions of the masculine and feminine principles, respectively.
As simplistic as this framework seems to be, I find it tends to hold up well.
The way out, to me, can only come through some form of creative encounter between the healthy and mature versions of the masculine and feminine principles. Politically this might equate to new forms of dialogue between those on the left and right who are pushing back against extremism on their own sides. Honestly I'm not sure where else to turn. It's been quite shocking in recent years to find myself isolated from so many of my former tribe, who mostly still seem oblivious to what to me are blatant and deeply troubling authoritarian developments.
A sticking point for me is spirituality. My spirituality is as profound and central to me as Christianity is to any Christian, yet I am not a Christian. I've walked a spiritual path for over 30 years, and now guide others in meditation and personal inquiry. Developing a connection to the sacred dimensions of nature is a very important part of my path. I have a problem with a religious attitude that assumes there is only one way to God -- and of course that attitude has a very long and dark history. So I'm especially encouraged by your line "living in a society such as ours requires you to ....make peace with those who do you no harm but pray differently than you or don’t pray at all."
Even though I still feel progressive in my core, I resonate with the integrity of your project. That integrity does represent for me the healthy masculine principle. I think the healthy feminine principle also has integrity, and my hope is that these currents can find a way to meet each other to develop a solid basis for culture that provides an alternative to today's shallow extremism.
Yeah the New Right’s conception of masculinity has (for the most part, occasionally you’ll find exceptions - the New Right is a big place with lots of disagreement) often seemed weird and even unmasculine to me. And I’m a guy who pretty much checks the boxes of stereotypically traditionally masculine, sometimes even unintentionally.
Why is Donald Trump, for instance, masculine? He says mean things but often not even to people’s faces and he lied his way out of fighting in Vietnam and then insulted McCain who did fight.
Or why is tweeting about the culture war considered to be a masculine example of fighting? Some New Right types are physically active, but many aren’t.
Above all, many seem to have embraced a victimhood version of masculinity. Society has unfairly gotten rid of the jobs men used to do and now they’re oppressed, etc.