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February 27, 2004
Fake Warriors
What does GWBush have in common with half a dozen rappers? They're all studio gangstas.
Charles Dutton recently said of hiphop 'actors':
In that regard if you go through every corner, every ghetto in America, you ain't gon' find nobody standing on the corner with his arms folded, you know what I mean, like in a hip hop stance. I mean that's kind of media behavior. I said let's dispense with all that, just play a guy who is tough without being demonstrative. Most hip hop generation young African American actors have the tendency or they think that their personas have to be of this tough "I'm a gangsta, I'm a tough guy" thing and really none of them are for real in real life . . .
Kevin Drum has narrowed it down to a checkbox, only proving the power of the open source intelligence that the blogosphere has produced. But what are we to make of the perpetratin' fraud of machismo manhood? It's clearly going top to bottom.
Since I am a traditionalist and coming from the Old School, I don't believe we are in need of a great deal of psychology in this matter. Nor will its cure be found in drugs. We need to look to the wisdom of the ways of the warrior and understand the difference between those who fight for purpose and those who squabble in ignorance. As a necessary part of this, we need to recovery our archtype.
For me, Robert Bly's 'Iron John' was a watershed because it placed manhood in the context of many archetypes. If gave me a way to see beyond the contemporary measures of man. Even though much of our archetypes come from European feudal ways, there is a great enough body of work, if when properly interpreted demonstrates exactly what responsibility a warrior possesses.
This is the kind of responsibility which is personal and at odds with modernity. It is completely eradicated in bureacracy and regimes of legal compliance. GWBush of all people, who cannot show and prove in the Plame case, ought to shut his mouth about being any kind of warrior. Kerry, a fabulously wealthy 4 time Senator from the East Coast gets no warrior props in my book. He's undone it all.
There's much more to say about this. I have had the experience that proved to me that I am not willing to live by a warrior code, but I admire those who truly are.
Posted by mbowen at February 27, 2004 11:25 AM
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