Historical sections regarding Nihilism and feminism were good. The chapter on stereotypes was very interesting. Everything else was a bit meh.

Saai

OK

Okay, I get it, and I agree with much of it, but this is one heck of a hard book to read. Make sure you've had Philosophy 101 and 201 before jumping into to this one.

This is a history book on the idea of manliness from various perspectives, such as liberalism, feminism, and classical thought.

Reading a book called Manliness in public is a little awkward. At first glance it may look like a self-help book to help the unmanly become manly. Although Harvey C. Mansfield has a few things to say about that, Manliness is far more philosophical and academically esoteric than some would expect. In fact, who thinks about "manliness" from an intellectual perspective at all? Mansfield's book is fascinating and important but also a bit laborious.

Manliness attempts to define and re-enshrine manliness in what Mansfield calls a "gender-neutral" society. Is there a place in such a society for manliness, which the author defines in part as not "mere aggression; it is aggression that develops an assertion, a cause it espouses." One of the most interesting sections of the book is its exploration of feminism and its precarious relationship with manliness; it both seeks to eradicate it but also embrace it. Should men be less manly but women more so? Furthermore, is manliness a social construction or an outward expression of natural impulses? And even more fundamentally, are women and men truly different? Mansfield brings his cerebral prowess to bear on these questions and showcases a great deal more thoughtfulness on these questions than is sometimes exhibited.

Although it may seem odd, I am very interested in manliness as a subject of consideration and debate. From a personal standpoint, I feel attributes of manliness have been disparaged or shunned simply because we don't know how to comfortably fit manly behavior into a gender-neutral society. Reading a book like Gates of Fire or even canonical texts reminds one that manliness is not only a real thing but even desired. Of course not all manly behavior, just like not all compromise or all compassion, is inherently good nor should be accepted as beneficial without additional scrutiny. However, a great deal of manliness as a concept is rejected because it appears exclusionary. (And on some levels it is). I think this is a mistake, and I appreciate Mansfield's contribution to a topic I am personally interested in. I also realize I'm probably a part of a very small audience.

Where Mansfield stumbles is in his insistence on providing far more textual interpretation than is necessary. Mansfield has plenty to share and opine about without providing pages and pages of commentary on existing texts. I completely understand the value of establishing concepts and ideas and by doing so with ancient or modern texts. However, at a certain point the author should realize I'm reading his book for his original ideas and writings, not Aristotle's. As someone who loves to write and certainly loves to quote other more capable writers, I absolutely see the value in spring boarding from existing knowledge and precedence, but eventually your interpretation of another author's writing becomes much, much less interesting than your own perspectives and outlooks.

Manliness is a challenging book to read. It assumes (or maybe not) familiarity with a variety of authors that many readers may never have read before—myself included. I liked the book, and I love the contribution it makes to a topic I care about. The book's influence might be limited, but I learned a lot about the virtues and dangers of manliness and where it fits in our gender-neutral society.

http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com/

A fatuous book full of woolly reasoning and unsupported assertions to the point where it's baffling that it ever made it past peer review at an academic press.

“Men can spit, cuss, tell dirty jokes, read porn, and drink beer. Modern women are doing their best to catch up with men in these attainments, and they do seem to have made modest progress in cussing, I say condescendingly. But they remain way behind men in natural, easy-going vulgarity.

Lacking as women are, comparatively, in aggression and assertiveness, it is no surprise that men have ruled over societies at almost all times” (64).

“We shall return to the possibility that being a sex object is not the worst fate in the world” (66).

“Is it possible to teach women manliness and thus to become more assertive? Or is that like teaching a cat to bark?” (67).

“Do women become shrill when they assert themselves and thus fail to impress others with their authority? In my experience it is difficult for a man who is attracted to a woman not to find her cute, rather than intimidating, when she gets angry” (69).

“Besides being weaker than men’s, women’s bodies are made to attract and to please men” (155).

A worthy read in the age of Trump. https://beingbeliefbehavior.blogspot....

Manliness suffers in the eyes of today's reviewers (see the litany of reviews castigating its "binariness") for the sin of having been written when the aperture of Overton's Window was in a different posture, which is remarkable considering it is barely a decade old. His is the Straussian (perhaps Bloomian) approach of marshaling literature and philosophy in service of an argument, namely that manliness properly understood is both "non-toxic" and essential. The book helps us appreciate manliness as it has been understood throughout history and across the Western Canon, rather than in its contemporary caricature. It's a serious, scholarly book that deserves to be engaged and appreciated accordingly.

Interesting, but even for me, a bit wordy. Basic thesis was good (in my opinion), but some of the passages were needlessly obtuse. Coming from me, that's saying something.

I have heard of Harvey Mansfield from a 'classist' who has published the guidebook on classics. If that matters, the classist is Korean and also 'classical' Marxist - as opposed to all the Marxist who applies his analysis everywhere such as race, gender... wait isn't this Foucault who stole some ideas from Nietzsche? - who are focused on economics and hated Capitalism. Wait, isn't Mansfield a part of... Neocon? But that classist loves Plato. So does Mansfield.

Anyway, the point here is that I was expecting to read a very thoughtful book by another classist as well as having the knowledge of history of philosophy so he could apply all of his learnings to this 'manliness' or 'masculinity' because it matters more than ever.

However, the book was deeply confusing (maybe I lost the track of his thoughts) so a very few things that remained such as the definition of manliness should be based on 'assertion' and this type of 'assertive' attitude is deeply political, as a man wants to change (or adjust) the world as they assert - and Harvey Mansfield's main track is political philosophy.

I did pick up this book as I probably shared the concern of his starting point - so-called gender-neutral society - but ended up not gained that much except the reminder of the history of philosophy while it took a while to hit the last page. (skimmed some parts)

I think the most interesting sentence was the last, "A free society cannot survive if we are so free that nothing is expected of us." I was hoping for a more clear definition of manliness. I left feeling that the author boils it down to assertiveness. Certainly that is an important part of manliness. I find myself following up on feminism. Is the radical feminism merely having women act like men? I'm not so sure. Certainly women sought to act more like men to move away from a passivity which seemed to define a lot of femininity going in to the 1960's. This book is work. It's not a simple read. I wasn't surprised to see in the author's bio that he was a contributor to the Weekly Standard. I do think his politics influences the book. That's neither good nor bad. I would call the author conservative and a critic of modern liberalism; however, I do appreciate his critique. Too often of late, conservative critiques of liberalism are overly simplistic and easily refuted. He offers more challenges. I do think his idea of the gender neutral state is an over simplification of an idea. I'm not sure there are many advocates for that. I do think we're in a transition period from how we defined the roles of men and women, and I do think it important to define both more clearly and with reference to both our natural inclinations, and to where we would like to be. Certainly this is a step in that journey.