What?

It is a self-evident but largely forgotten truth that the good of America depends upon the moral strength of its men.  We use the term deliberately rather than the androgynous “people” and “persons.”  The current crises this nation faces are in large part the result of a crisis in manhood and caused by the failure of too many men too much of the time to do the right thing.  Books and articles with titles such as The Decline of Males, “The End of Men,” Men to Boys, The War Against Boys, and Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys—written by cultural critics on both the political Right and the Left—signal what every employer, every voter, every young woman in college today knows all too well: It is increasingly hard to find good men.  That alarming fact should not surprise us since the entire culture seeks to undermine traditional manhood.  We only have to compare the males of this generation in their late teens and early twenties to their grandfathers’ generation to realize how far and how fast we have fallen.

The larger undertaking of national renewal—so desperately needed in this country right now—depends upon the restoration of traditional manhood.  That restoration must not be content with trying to teach a few lessons in manners or manliness to the twenty-year-old wimp or barbarian as we find him.  Instead we must return the entire regime of making men to the principles of old.  These first principles lead us to a deliberate course of action, including the following:

  • Returning to time-tested methods of bringing up boys;
  • Restoring schools to the teaching of traditional subjects by traditional methods;
  • Revivifying true liberal education in the nation’s high schools and colleges, liberal education being understood as the making of free, self-reliant, and principled men (and women, too);
  • Reestablishing a culture of gentlemanly competition among boys in sports and in school and among men in business;
  • Reversing the course of and eventually ending the welfare state, which has enervated the will and sense of responsibility in men to provide for themselves and their families—not just in the “inner cities,” but also in the suburbs and small towns throughout the nation;
  • Revamping our commitment to live according to the cardinal and American virtues: courage, temperance, justice, prudence, perseverance, self-reliance, industry, frankness, and fidelity—all directed by a sense of honor;
  • Reclaiming men’s sense of chivalry and gentlemanliness in relation to women;
  • Renewing a generous and informed love of family, of country, and of God—with the aim of serving and protecting these higher ends.

The purpose of the thoughts put forth on this site is to arrive at both the grand strategy and the discrete tactics by which victory in Remanning America might be achieved.

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