What has resulted is a generation of “boy-men” who see no benefit “in the self-denying setting of marriage and family life.” The sexual revolution of the 1960’s was not, as is often asserted, a break from the immediate past but the fulfillment of a movement that had started a century earlier. “Being a kid,” Cross writes, “has become much more satisfying than it was in the past when the young submitted to their elders and did without while the aged had distinct privileges.” Men of the modern era have, therefore, rejected the values and patterns of their fathers in favor of more freedom and less responsibility. If nothing is gained by becoming a mature man, why do it?Īt the same time, as the significance of becoming a “man” in society declined, the benefits of childhood increased. In the modern age, becoming a man seems to have no benefit in terms of family or social life. Further, men were admitted to a wider social acceptance when they achieved a certain degree of maturity. Men lived in a world “where there was deference to family heads, and access to law and public resources” from which young men were excluded. The most distinct of these advantages was that men were granted social and political authority. Previously, to be a man among men had come with social and familial benefits that adolescence could not provide. With the rise of Industrial and post-Industrial society, there was also a corresponding loss of benefit to becoming a “man,” less “payoff for male maturity,” than in previous eras. The history of modern men is, therefore, a history of men and society at large attempting to address the problems generated by the Industrial Revolution. Except for household tasks and bread-winning, men had become incidental to the internal life of the family. The father in pre-Industrial ages was far more “hands-on” in the daily formation of his children, deeply immersed in everything from “discipline to character building and job training.” By contrast, the modern man’s role in the home was relegated to the waning evening hours. The role of the father, consequently, underwent a radical shift from household authority to absent provider. Where men had previously spent the day at home on the farm or in the shop, modern men left their homes for over 12 hours each day in order to provide for their family. What, then, has happened to men over these past hundred years? Gary Cross, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, attempts to trace the rapid change in men from stoic providers, protectors, and soldiers to irresponsible and cynical “boy-men.”Ĭross finds the origins of this massive cultural shift in the Industrial Revolution. In terms of social expectations, however, young men are typically no longer expected to be the aggressive guardians and protectors of their communities. There are, of course, those from our current generation who have offered sacrifices for their country willingly and without complaint. It would be difficult to imagine most young men from this generation or those recently past reacting in such a way. As one of the men recounts, “There was a job to be done we just went on and did it.” Though Jackson’s selections might have been judiciously chosen in order to present a hagiography of World War I veterans, it is clear that these men did not think that they deserved great praise or even think that they did anything remarkable. Surprisingly, most of the men look with some fondness on their experience and, though they surely bore both psychological and physical scars from their time, do not seem to expect any pity or overwhelming praise. What’s remarkable is not the horrors of war they describe, but how simply and laconically the men speak of what they lived through. In the opening scene of Peter Jackson’s 2018 World War I documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old, we hear the voices of veterans recounting their experiences as infantry soldiers on the front lines.
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