In his new book, Charlie LeDuff purports to outline the pathological nature of males. A review of US Guys.
“There’s nothing wrong with us guys, except everything.”
“You guys aren’t dumb rednecks like they say?”
Well, with fair and open-minded quotes like the ones above, along with the subtitle "The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man," readers can easily discern just how slanted and biased Charlie LeDuff’s account of the direct sex is in US Guys. His subtitle, were it to be used in the context of women, would be tantamount to a hate crime. The author would never do that though because, as he admits in the Preface, “I hardly understand women.” No doubt he is right but also apparent is his gaudy ignorance of men.
The text is devoid of psychological revelation concerning males, but it does effectively illuminate the pervasive misandry endemic to our culture. Mr. LeDuff possesses as many negative assumptions about men as a Womyn’s Studies professor, and he gladly shares them throughout the narrative.
Consider the supposition that time spent brawling with a gang of bikers elucidates the reason “why the American man is so aggressive and angry.” It does . . . assuming one was already convinced of the fact beforehand. The person who is hungry for actual knowledge knows otherwise. Behaviors exhibited by belligerent derelicts cannot be extrapolated to the broader population. After all, deviants are, well, deviant. They are not the norm. The average male neither commits felonies nor scraps on a daily basis.
Yet, in his attempt to depict the soul of the American male, Mr. LeDuff exclusively seeks out the company of freaks. The fallacious menagerie is incorporated by bums in Tulsa, gay rodeo cowboys in Oklahoma City, players on a marginal semi-pro football team in Amarillo, the East Bay Rats motorcycle gang in Oakland, jockeys in Miami, the denizens of the Burning Man festival, and reenactors of the Battle of Little Big Horn. These fellows are no more representative of “US Guys” than my political views are indicative of those held by the average Chicagoan.
The title of this book really should be, News of the Weird. Of course, that would never sell like one purporting to outline the pathological nature of males. Reports of masculine abomination are precisely the type of thing which fly off the shelves in this country. These essays actually appear to have been created for another purpose altogether. The same topics are covered in episodes from LeDuff’s Discovery Channel Only in America show. His decision to formally link his experiences to misandry may have been just an afterthought.
US Guys has been dubbed Gonzo journalism which, given the broad confines of the genre, it probably is despite Mr. LeDuff having little in common with Hunter S. Thompson. His travelogue is more in the tradition of Confederates in the Attic as, here too, an intrepid anti-liberal elitist ventures out to our non-Eastern expanses to report back on all the rubes and crackers he came across on the journey.
Mr. LeDuff was a reporter at the New York Times for twelve years and the first person he thanked on the acknowledgments page was its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. This association goes a long way in explaining the ubiquitous slant of his insight. Like seeing the collected works of Simone de Beauvoir in an associate’s bookcase, LeDuff’s association with the Gray Lady tells you just about everything you need to know about his ideology.
The following sentence showcases his acceptance of radical feminist dogma: “This was the late seventies when it seemed like every father was packing his bags and walking out the door. The fathers, of course, did not pay their child support and so the mothers dutifully went off to earn the bread.” On aggregate, not a word of his statement is true. Today, most fathers pay child support; just as they always have. Furthermore, women, and not men, are the ones who usually initiate divorce in both America and Canada.1
The pretense that American men possess “true and twisted minds” will undoubtedly endear the author to his intended audience as they regard the nefariousness of men as being an undeniable truth (see the oeuvre of Maureen Dowd). I am sure it sold quite well among those who perpetually look down on their fellow citizens — except for reasons relating to the troika of race, sex, and class.
Mr. LeDuff’s missive was penned exclusively for the active parishioners of the church of political correctness. Everything they need to reinforce their preexisting superiority and prejudice is here. The words said to him by a pro bull rider — “I just got a phobia about queers, is all” — defy belief2 and not in keeping with the conversational style of your average rodeo performer. Only among those with an education contaminated by politics will the canard of homophobia make any sense. Normal people are far too grounded to buy into the notion that one’s likes and dislikes are a product of fear.
With gays, LeDuff is somewhat of an aficionado. Perhaps his admiration is due to a need to uniformly support every construct of PC. His own sexual inclinations are rather ambiguous. At one point there is the strange interlude of his smooching a biker (“I kiss him back. Full on the mouth”). He then makes a point of getting dolled up for his bout at the fight club and chooses as his ring name, “Oscar Wilde the faggot.”
In light of his outlook, his conclusion regarding the metrosexual phenomenon, “. . . guys are getting in touch with the girlish alter ego that lurks underneath the mustache of every man,” is rather suspicious. The statement may be true of Mr. LeDuff but why indict the rest of us with these feminization fantasies? Just as most men do not shop at Saks and leave with a $500 suede shirt, a linen and Spandex t-shirt, and Polo slacks (as he tells us he did) there is no justification for supposing that all men harbor such inclinations.
His time spent with a minor league football team taught him little about the game but everything “about race.” This is unfortunate but entirely expected. To leftists, every habit, every profession, and every human interaction is colored by race — or at least by the way in which it can be used to establish one’s moral transcendence over others.
With race, Mr. LeDuff has a carefully trained eye. He can only detect racism when displayed by whites. He interjects himself into a dispute among two teammates and confesses his intention to “stir up the racial witch’s brew.” Well, isn’t that what the political Left has habitually been doing for forty years?
While watching a brawl in a fight club, LeDuff cannot see beyond the race of the pugilists: “At the first fight party, I watched Big Mike disassemble the face of a man who outweighed him by thirty pounds — a white man. The crowd lustily crowed, their racial psychosis satisfied in the proof that the black body must defeat the white.” I would contend that it is not the crowd that suffers from racial psychosis but Mr. LeDuff himself. The only pathology intrinsic to these circumstances is the narrator’s own obsession with superficial human characteristics. Furthermore, Big Mike, the only black man in the club, was also one of its most popular members; a fact which reveals more about black/white relations in America than any of the narrator’s asides.
There are many other inappropriate references to race in the text, such as LeDuff describing a stranger as a “typical white guy, pear-shaped.” Why would anybody make such a comment? It does not even have the benefit of being true. Admittedly, obesity is a serious problem in our nation, but white children are less likely to become obese than black or Hispanic ones. This was just another throw away line from a person plagued by deep-seated, and highly selective, racial prejudice.
Yes, even among this bizarre collection of characters, LeDuff does not come off well. This conclusion aptly illustrates his mental state: “Some men are strong despite their shortcomings and are able to get on with the dreary business of living.” Well, perhaps his perspective is fueled more by self-loathing rather than misandry. Life is not a dreary business for most of us, but it appears to be for the author. Later, he confirms this by informing us that clowns exist to avoid letting people know that “life is horrible.”
Like with many other leftists, Mr. LeDuff has projected his own trauma upon the psyches of whites and males. Men are not twisted, but that the word is descriptive of the narrator is open to interpretation.
Endnotes
1. Nathanson, Paul and Young, Katherine K. Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men. (Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006). p.132.
2. I’m not saying he made it up, but clearly the guy quoted has to be a most uncommon rodeo performer.
US Guys is available on Amazon.com.
veritaseducation@gmail.com
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22chapin%27s+inferno%22&search_type=
Read more articles by Bernard Chapin
Well never judge a book by its cover I suppose, but why was this book even reviewed here? Obviously it is a work of sensationalism and not scholarship.
But really? Why do reenactors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn constitute weird? Why do you think jockeys constitute weird?
I am a battle re-enactor myself (although medieval more so than frontier) and can assure you MOST battle re-enactors would feel right at home on this site. Their interest may not be baseball and football, but they are far from Weird.
Comment by Carl | October 23, 2007
An interesting (and better-reasoned) take on men can be found here: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 23, 2007
To women, men are weird because they are not, … well, women.
So women took over public education and began the process of turning boys into girls. I saw a psychologist interview in which he said there is some reason to believe that male homosexuality might be due in part to a boy’s lack of relating to boyhood chums. If this is true, a new, even larger crop of gay men are just over the horizon.
This all leads me to note that every male group activity must include the female, lest charges of "discrimination" and "my rights are being denied" are heard. In all this is the doctrine of "Equal But Special" — women are equal but special. And it is why I have to suffer through the suffrage of a female piece of affirmative action work do useless sideline interviews at pro football games.
Comment by sedonaman | October 23, 2007
Thanks RI. That was a good article and a good argument against Mrs. Bill Clinton as Commander in Chief.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | October 23, 2007
Umm… no, Ivan. You took the wrong lessons from that. Just because the distribution of ability with women may be taller and narrower than that of men does not mean that there aren't any women with exceptional ability - even in areas traditionally regarded as "male".
A few quotes from the article that you appear to have missed: "Several recent works have questioned the whole idea of gender differences in abilities: Even when average differences are found, they tend to be extremely small. In contrast, when you look at what men and women want, what they like, there are genuine differences… Workaholics are mostly men. (There are some women, just not as many as men.)… Men created the big social structures that comprise society, and men still are mainly responsible for this, even though we now see that women can perform perfectly well in these large systems."
There may be good reasons that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be undesirable, but the fact that she's a woman isn't one of them.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 23, 2007
No RI, I did not take a wrong lesson. I agree that men and women have the same average IQ, but the problems with Hillary are those typical to women as described in the baumeister article. She has never led and she is only concerned about power. God knows what she would do to this country. I suppose there will be a woman some day that can lead this country, but it’s not her. I admired her when she stuck by the President during his Lewinski affair, but now it’s obvious what she was planning all the time. That kind of long-range repression can only come from a female. She has been humiliated and she plans to get even, or more.
On the other hand, maybe it will be good for us to have her back at 1600. It took the incompetence of Jimmy Carter to bring us back. Just imagine Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, as Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | October 23, 2007
I can only hope the author's next book will inlcude one on the self-admiring authors, professors, and reporters in this country, which can simply be labled as useless with little to no benefit to society. (I do not need any proof for this, after all I read the New York Times for 12 years, that alone makes me qualified.) As the groups above were labled and disected as "News of the Wierd" I simply saw adrenaline junkies (minus the bums). Maybe we can look at these "intellectuals" for what they really are, little momma's boys who are still trying to recieve any form of respect from society to justify their very existence. We all know the types; think tank wannabees, English teachers, History professors, liberals in general, and probably the worst; guys who spend way too much time writing opinions on a blog when they could be doing something productive. Geez- I have to get back to work ………..lol
Comment by Honker | October 24, 2007
How do you lump in English teachers and History Proffesors with momma's boys trying to get respect? This is a perfect example of leftwards thinking.
Not even most men could be English teachers or Hostory professors. To be successful, it takes a talent set not generally present in the majority.
I am not a history proffesor, but the study of history is my general hobby.
Comment by Carl | October 24, 2007
Sigh I do not know how to edit… I meant History proffesors…
Comment by Carl | October 24, 2007
Oh yes, a hobby. Which means you probably do not believe your view of history should stand as law for future generations and you probably offer society something other than babble. You would be regarded as the novice who only exist to be put down and used as an elevation tool for the full time serious historian. Yes, you are to them what the infomericial is to a full page ad in the New York Times; Yes you may be to the point and successful but you are lacking the intellectual aptitude to handle such complicated issues of the past and transcend such logic and reason to the present.
Comment by Honker | October 24, 2007
Sedonaman:
As usual, your comments brought a smile to my face; while watching the Sunday night football game I had the very same thought. American men have definitely dropped to the bottom of the cultural food chain. But, what remains unexplained by the sociologists is why societies invariably feel the need to single out a particular group to despise. This human foible apparently crosses different cultures and different times; the groups may change but there always seems to be one group that is the official scapegoat, the living, breathing Polish joke and the designated loser everyone else can hate with impunity.
In our society, that group is currently men, and white guys in particular. And, what’s extremely weird is that men, particularly white men, encourage it. Admittedly, that’s strange behavior and kind of like the Nazis recruiting Jews to write propaganda explaining the superiority of The Master Race and the inferiority of sub-humans. To their credit, the Jews would have flatly refused to despise their own people, but certain contemporary American men would no doubt have agreed to turn on their brothers by saying: “OK, I’ll do it, but only if I can have a window office and a secretary with big boobs.”
If you check, I’d bet my new motorcycle that the people who decided we need a Suzy or a Melissa to conduct useless interviews during the game are men. They’re probably chasing the “female viewer” for the advertising dollars – somewhat understandable, although supposedly a typical behavior of American males motivated solely by greed.
But, what about all the television courtroom dramas like “Law & Order” and its numerous crime drama spin-offs? Ever notice that most murderers are white guys, seldom minorities or women. And, the men, almost invariably white guys, commit the most disgusting murders, rapes, mutilations and child abuse for a variety of perverted reasons or no reason at all. Is it just a coincidence the producers and script writers of these shows are white guys? We can’t enjoy a cops and robbers theme anymore unless the “perp” is both male and white?
Is this a form of self-hate or is it a wily attempt to stay on top of the economic game at the expense of stigmatizing themselves, their male friends and even their own sons? And, what’s with the beer commercials: all guys are lazy, housework avoiding nitwits who come up with various ridiculous plans to avoid work so they can drink beer (and, that’s assuming you actually consider Bud Light to be beer). All the guys I know, including the hated white guys, are decent, honest men working hard to care for their wives and kids in an increasingly competitive world.
I can’t explain the underlying reasons, but I don’t think it’s just American women who are turning little boys into little girls. Why would a little boy want to be like the images of men currently portrayed in our entertainment and popular media? My fantasy beer commercial is a bunch of white guys and their sons enjoying a father and son outing by drinking Sam Adams while simultaneously beating the mess out of the Hollywood writers and producers of “Law & Order”.
Comment by Pat Skurka | October 24, 2007
Pat Skurka:
Thank you for your kind words.
Yes, I too have noticed the proliferation of what I call "he-done-HER-wrong" crime programs on TV. I began watching "Law and Order" when they were first re-runs, and I must say the older shows had some interesting twist in the end. Then they evolved into "he-done-HER-wrong" and were no longer of interest. Same with the forensic crime series. They are 99.44% a specialized version of the "he-done-HER-wrong" plot: "HE raped and murdered HER"."
I'm not a psychologist, but I think the reasons for all this male-hate in the popular culture are not due to a single reason but many.
Your question of "Why would a little boy want to be like the images of men currently portrayed in our entertainment and popular media?" contains its own answer: because it's portrayed in the popular media. Most people unconsciously accept the movies, TV, etc. as portraying the ideal, and who doesn't want to be part of the ideal? Example: One day a fellow at work said he watched (I think it was) "A Fistful of Dollars" the night before. All that day, he smoked his cigarettes the same way Clint Eastwood did in the movie.
Comment by sedonaman | October 25, 2007
Sedonaman:
I’m not a psychologist either, just a businessman, but I believe you’re right – there probably isn’t one specific reason for this male-hate phenomena in our culture and popular media. And, your point that people emulate in real life what they see in the media is apt.
What puzzles me is why little boys are being encouraged to grow up to be more like their mothers – they certainly wouldn’t want to grow up to be men, according to Hollywood and the media. Better to be psychological females rather than those brutal, cowardly guys portrayed in the crime dramas – or the nitwit, male losers in the situation comedies. The “HE done HER wrong” theme is very prevalent in the crime/action dramas as you noted, but now the female is the macho hero as well as the victim. Women are currently portrayed in shows as “a** - kicking” cops, Indiana Jones style action heroes, bionic super-fems, you name it. They have all the character qualities of a latter day John Wayne, but with a keen fashion sense and superior personal hygiene.
Are future Marines or Army Rangers going to be sensitive, highly emotional types with a social conscience? If so, do they get a “constitutional choice” when it comes to armed combat as women get now with abortion? Seems only fair to eliminate the double standard – after all it’s their body that goes in harm’s way and seems equitable to give them, not the government, a personal choice in whether to face live fire situations.
If the motive is to sensitize little boys to the female point of view in order to protect Western women from patriarchal societies in the Middle East or elsewhere on the globe, then the plan will certainly backfire if this “my body – my choice” concept is adopted as well. In past wars, men weren’t allowed to vote or seek group consensus on whether it was desirable to charge the enemy machine gun nest.
I’m still puzzled as to the motivation but convinced this male-hate phenomena would work out better in the end if it’s only a passing fad – better for all of us.
Comment by Pat Skurka | October 26, 2007
Pat Skurka:
I know you read "Enough With the Obsfucation Already, Part Two" http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/09/01/enough-with-the-obfuscation-already-part-two , but did you read the referenced article, http://www.orgonomy.org/article_terrorism_trueliberal.html ? I think it might answer some of your questions of "why". What struck me was it was written in 1965 !
Comment by sedonaman | October 27, 2007