Politics, Parades, and All They En-gender

The Democratic Party’s “Speaking with American Men” (SAM) project has given Americans plenty to talk about regarding attitudes toward dudes—and even more regarding personhood in the political battlefield.

CNN’s Michael Smerconish opened his June 7 program with this summation of SAM’s recent research: ““Young men feel disconnected from civic life. They distrust politics, education, even the job market. They feel shame about their mental health, conflicted about their masculinity, and struggling with economic anxiety….”

One week later, Washington, DC, was poised for a military parade likely to trigger thoughts of braggadocio, at least as personified by President Trump—“celebrating his 79^th birthday and the 250^th anniversary of the US Army.” Organizers of the “‘No Kings’ Nationwide Day of Defiance” expected demonstrations nationwide to protest Trump’s “authoritarian aspirations” and his “spectacle of strength.”

Political media are constantly abuzz with gender-adjacent issues, but we need deeper understanding drawn from a range of perspectives and disciplines. We’ll benefit from some insights of the past, not found among SAM’s surveys or Uncle Sam’s festival.

Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003), a Jesuit priest and prominent scholar in religion, culture, and philosophy, made observations about the mind and heart of masculinity in a 1989 book titled Fighting for Life: Context, Sexuality, and Consciousness. His work was discussed last October at a symposium convened by the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

He asked, What does it mean to be a man?

Pope John Paul II addressed the question almost a decade before Ong by compiling a spiritual analysis of sexuality called the “theology of the body.” In a landmark series of lectures, he outlined complementary gifts which men and women bring to the world in order to understand “human love in the divine plan.”

Our secular society also has been analyzing, more chaotically, various ways to assess male and female, masculinity and femininity, since those scholarly inquiries. The effort continues, with criticisms of male privilege, toxic masculinity, and gender as a social construct. These highlight the kinds of concerns which the Democratic Party found in its latest research and to which the parade reactions give voice.

Ong provided a multidisciplinary overview and posited three facts about men, the first of which might sound jarring to modern ears even though it echoes various assumptions our culture has made for centuries. Father Christian Raab, a speaker at the Steubenville conference, described the observations in Ong’s writings.

‘Women and Children First’

“Maleness,” as Father Raab spelled out, “first of all means expendability.” Generalizing about the animal kingdom, males “tend to be bigger and stronger,” with thicker hides and “weapons like horns, tusks, and claws.” This is equipment for combat which entails the risk of death—combat which ensures the survival of the species.

One might say this condition “is a byproduct of male uselessness” compared to the female’s more important evolutionary role in raising the next generation. A combination of nature and nurture seems to prepare human males for risk-taking; consider their testosterone, a “larger part of the brain that drives aggression,” and their “more active dopamine system.”

As Raab described the views of Ong, which might or might not be confirmed by current science and circumstances, these traits help to illuminate why “males are expected to go to war.” They tend to “take higher-risk occupations for the good of the group” and to “allow women and children onto the lifeboat.”

‘Are You the Opposite Sex, or am I?’

Ong’s second distinctive trait of maleness is differentiation. This sense of being different grows during one’s “life journey,” starting in the womb. A female child’s hormonal makeup is the same as her mother’s, but “a male child, from its earliest moments, produces enough masculine hormone to counterbalance its surrounding environment.”

After the male’s period of gestational push-back, as cited from Ong’s remarks, the little boy is raised largely by his mother but at some point realizes he is different from mom. Almost all kids express this by constantly saying “no.” But, while a girl learns she is a separate person, the boy also discovers he is a different sex, or gender.

Boys typically want their own toys, somehow different from their sisters’. Girls “tend to be okay with putting on boy clothes and playing with boy toys,” but many boys resist the girl’s items. Father Raab told his audience: “One of my friends was making lunch for her children, and she said, hey buddy, you want a grill cheese? He said, no, I want a boy cheese!”

‘Look at Me, I’m Really Something!’

Third, according to Ong’s schema, maleness means a growing sense of exteriority. Call it insecurity, but we often see a young man working on being an “other,” trying to set himself apart through definitions of masculinity he explores. He may decide to become a builder or a disruptor, or perhaps an authoritarian.

As Father Raab pointed out in his lecture, a man might try for years to prove masculinity (mostly to himself) by some standard of success and happiness—perhaps buying a fancy car or marrying a “trophy wife” or earning a hefty salary. These choices can fail to transcend himself.

Ong concluded that men ideally will “direct our masculine energy well,” channeling our sense of expendability, differentiation, and exteriority through healthy interpretations of maleness. These encourage us to “sacrifice ourselves for others and perform valiant exploits that enrich families and communities.”

Going Deeper with the Definitions

To accomplish this growth, men look first to other men as models, benchmarks, and companions on the journey. A key early step is the role of a beneficent father, or an equivalent male figure—an exemplar toward which a boy can gravitate as he separates from his mother.

This father-son bond is a transformative force for both individuals. Ong believed “fatherhood is perhaps the deepest expression of what it means to be male.”

Meanwhile, young men growing in their self-definition also seek out the company of other males in two contexts—those with whom they can compete rigorously (but non-maliciously), and those who will affirm them as welcome contributors of valued qualities. Ong said men thereby learn what their gifts are and where they stand in relation to other men.

There’s another important environment for men’s development, namely the full range of their experiences with women. This was not forgotten at the Steubenville conference; the event organizer, theologian and philosopher Deborah Savage, made a presentation fleshing out her theme: “The question of man and woman, both who they are as persons of equal dignity and who they are in relation to one another, is perhaps the question of our era.”

What does it mean to be a woman? The discussions on that topic deserve their own essay, one driven less by the secular news hooks of SAM and Uncle Sam. But it’s notable that a posited feminine gift, receptivity, invites solidarity and accrues understanding among others. This quality interacts with Ong’s three definitions of maleness, which can tend to make men pull away.

The female responsiveness to people, more than to things, opens a door for caring about all of humanity, according to Savage, and it can “reveal man to himself” as well as pointing toward “the purpose and meaning of life” in “human community.”

Women have achieved a growing role in shaping our overall culture, but Savage pointed out that society’s economic ethos still gives priority to making tangible products, displaying efficiency, and generating results. Life appears more like an organizational chart than a web of real relationships.

These various references to men and women, intended neither as a theological critique of masculinity and femininity nor as a definitive update on biology and psychology, nevertheless can aid our reflections on the authentic personhood behind the media’s narratives.

At a time when pro-Trump pundits say his administration has claimed a theme of “common sense” as its philosophical high ground, some commentators say the Democratic Party must find a core idea or cause to serve as its own rallying cry in future campaigns.

SAM’s research suggests that men, about 55 percent of whom voted for Trump in 2024, feel disconnected, distrustful, and uncertain or confused about society and their role in it.

The best response to Americans’ discontent will connect both visionary and practical elements. Both interests apply to both sexes. We are all in this together, sharing countless workday roles (including in the military), as well as challenges with mental wellness, issues of trust and truth, and cravings to fill the holes in our hearts. Likewise, both major parties, various institutions, and all citizens must cooperate to revitalize the public square.

Based on the propositions above, here are ideas to start conversations about this mission, regardless of our perspectives or pronouns.

• Humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935) famously said, “I’m not a member of any organized party—I’m a Democrat.” Right now, that might ring true for Democrats as a whole, but their dominant public face since 2020 has become steadfastly progressive and reminiscent of a political machine with a “fall in line” algorithm. We might expect males who tend toward differentiation and exteriority to dismiss this uniformity, especially when Republicans at the moment wear an entrepreneurial face. They fixate us with a relatively youthful—sometimes juvenile—energy for adventure (good and bad).

• Men love to play with machines, but they don’t like machines that play with them. We might picture them choosing fields of combat and opportunities for human teamwork where they might reasonably reach their personal best, whether for their own gain or for a higher cause. All persons can be self-centered, but we can be turned toward a common good if it has the feel of beneficial transformation, maybe via a hero’s journey as popularized by famed mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987).

• The idea of male “expendability,” not a salutary word choice by Ong, is profound when it implies a person’s ultimate sacrifice, deserving honor and showing life’s value. That’s not the tone of the 1970’s feminist slogan, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” When reflecting on expendability as mortality, we prefer to see death as a crucial fact of life. We’re galvanized when Jesus says “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” is the greatest love (John 15:13). Father Raab, in his lecture, said Ong’s term evokes “a kind of association with spiritual warfare.” We may disagree, but we know sacrifices for truth and goodness sustain hope—and future generations.

• The Democratic Party may have sent an errant emphasis about “expendability” when it posted its “Who We Serve” [sic] page at democrats.org. CNN’s Smerconish noted with surprise that the page (as of June 12) still contained a list of appreciated voter groups which explicitly included “women” but not “men.” Fortunately, all the other groups—from senior citizens to the LGBTQ+ Community—implicitly contain both women and men.

• Savage, whose think tank studies Christian feminism, properly said in her lecture that female receptivity to community and humanity is a powerful corrective to expand males’ horizons if they have drifted into ego-centric masculinity. But independent personalities might retreat when anybody’s “receptivity” to ideas and circumstances morphs into a passive-aggressive empathy, embracing favored groups but canceling those deemed despicable.

• That’s why receptivity, regardless of one’s gender, will have more allure when it is active; this stance accepts comfortable collaboration striving to share truths and values, it speaks and listens with an open mind, it rejects doctrinaire or knee-jerk thinking, and it welcomes the surprises of human change and differentiation. Savage might call this an inclusiveness extending to a surprising God who stirs up wisdom and meaning, thereby uniting and balancing us. We can’t all be “joyful warriors” in the same way, but everyone can join an active pursuit of happiness beyond oneself—something a beloved Democrat has called “the audacity of hope.”

Conversations about topics like these can contribute to SAM’s analysis of men and women, problems and solutions, faith and reason. We can see a military parade as a salute to well-intentioned people, not just a row of machines.

If the Democratic Party still searches for a core idea, a unifying theme, and a hill for planting its flag, great suggestions will bubble up. Some might propose “an opportunity economy” or “a government as good as its people” or “Make the World Great Again.”

Here is an audacious notion, something visionary that also spawns specific, practical alternatives to present-day dangers: Three simple words might engender active receptivity toward Americans broadly, transcending such differences as male and female.

The phrase could also differentiate our country as a bold leader in an existential combat. Indeed, imagine hundreds of millions of distinctive leaders, defending qualities which might otherwise slip away if entrusted to mere politics.

Picture these words on a banner summing up SAM’s findings, both as facts to receive and as causes to fight for. Let both parties fly the flag of “Save the Humans.”

Image from Microsoft Bing’s AI Co-Pilot. Notice that AI gave the man on the right three arms–truly an act of differentiation.

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