The Boys Are Back in Town

Whoa, Man…

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, quantum-physicist or neurosurgeon who moonlights as an attorney to notice that the seditious crowd that pillaged the Capitol was largely male.

Yes, there were a few women sprinkled into the mix…

The much larger gender demographic slice, though, was pretty easy to spot.

Far from Dino’s Bar and Grill – with Thin Lizzy nowhere to be found – “back in town” was what the boys, proud and otherwise, indeed were…

Having spent the better part of the past twenty years specializing in working with men, I have more than a few words to say about what – and particularly who – I observed.

A look at those who manned the storming of the US Capitol reveals patterns of behaviors and ideals built on more than a few weary man-myths…

From where I sit, seeing men acting out from those tattered old masculine models – strong-at-all-costs, irrationally self-assured, emotionally invulnerable, oppressively “right” – was akin to witnessing Willy Loman whiz by, careening off the road into a tree as his radio blasted a Doppler-distorted ‘50’s song.

For those who paid attention to the brand that, according to one of his campaign spokesmen, was “the most masculine person to ever hold the White House”, (alrighty then…) the event wasn’t anywhere as surprising as it was predictably, tragically revelatory.

So let’s have a quick look, from a masculine perspective, at what was – and what was not – revealed…

(If you’re up for a longer, deeper plunge into what I’m going to touch on below, read King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. Published in 1991, it continues to be one of the very best examinations of masculine psychology out there – and in so many ways even more timely and meaningful in this historical moment.)

For starters, there was no shortage of tactical gear, camouflage, more than a few massive beards and a smattering of animal-skins, all adding up to what might be called “right-wing ‘patriot’ couture…”

In this case, dressing for success was the sartorial equivalent of one-part wearable intimidation and one-part conquering hero cosplay…

Also present was a mis- and disinformation fueled, refuse-to-lose, entitled self-righteousness. It went well beyond “I’ll just take my ball and go home!” Yet that brat energy, amplified by numbers and frothed into a fury, was present in abundance…

One has only to reflect on some of the images and social media posts that popped up that day – now being used by the FBI and others as evidence – to see that “if we can’t have what we want, no one can” flavor of entitlement in action.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the overwhelming presence of bad-boy symbols: Confederate and Gadsden flags, fascist symbols and language, images with the former president’s head photo-shopped onto a muscled, menacing, militaristic Rambo-esque body, complete with a BFG in his well-oiled, flexing arms…

Were it not terrifying, it would have been cartoonish. (To be fair, it was both.)

Last – for this moment at least – was the thoughtless destruction which, I think, neither deserves nor requires additional words.

What was not present – and what brought it all home – from years of the president’s words and dog-whistles of encouragement to the final acting-out of the mob – was the complete and total lack of responsibility.

All of this gathers to paint a picture of the distorted shadow sides of each and every Jungian masculine archetype Moore and Gillette write about…

And while I’m not a huge fan of the term “toxic masculine”, this was very much that on technicolor parade.

Our collective challenge going forward is that we live in a culture that revels in and celebrates so much of what is, at its essence, never-ending adolescence…

While, on the masculine side of the equation, aspiring to a child’s or young teen’s image of what “real men” are supposed to be.

And while those adolescent energies can, arguably, be fun, when they express themselves without the boundary-setting influences of responsibility – including truth, transparency, clarity, accountability and real-world consequences for one’s actions – things can get nasty fast.

We have seen – one more time – what comes of the the painful limitations and violent excesses of the shadow-side of out of control, childish and adolescent distorted masculinity…

Let’s hope we learn a thing or two before the boys are back in town again.