This ties out better with Shadi's comments (in the latest podcast) on idealism as the precursor to hypocrisy than I realized.
I was going to say I think character is the requisite measuring-stick needed to be the good sort of vulnerable, but some ideal (we invariably fall short of) at the minimum.
If you're in the 'young angry men' camp, you're so focused on the ideal form of society and the state that you've missed the log in your own eye, and wouldn't know it's a log if you could see it. That lack of a personal ideal sets you apart from a nobler form of living. Po put it another way... your anger is all externally oriented and you lack introspection (What a victim-mentality that is!)
This probably just cycles over and over, at the cost of many souls until some divine intervention.
that's got to be *the* dichotomy—thumos directed toward external indignation at a defective world vs thumos directed at the task of becoming fully human
When I was going through a difficult period, medically, I made the commitment to take myself to an art gallery on the day each month that I felt better. That was a precious day and I could have spent it on all the work that had accumulated. But the decision to just go, see, experience a beauty that my body, at that moment, was not capable of, was crucial. I'll always be grateful for that season.
I've noticed lately that all of my bandwidth suddenly becomes available when people share poetry. I've stopped questioning it. It must be my late autumn sweater.
Your essay on vulnerability invokes a nobility I recognize but cannot endorse—not because vulnerability isn't aspirational, but because the conditions for genuine vulnerability no longer exist. In my book, Modern Masculinity for the Conscious Man, I examine this precisely: vulnerability demands safety, yet modern women have systematically dismantled the psychological infrastructure men require to offer it. I take no joy in saying this.
You're right that "the decision to protect oneself is already a loss." But you've inverted the causality. The loss precedes the decision. I don't counsel hardening as a philosophical choice—I'm describing what remains after the wounding. A man's vulnerability "is music to his ears" only if the woman holds it with delicacy. Instead, conscious men encounter what I call the "vulnerability paradox": modern women demand emotional openness while lacking "any sacred obligation to hold his vulnerability with delicacy." The moment he opens, she either uses it as ammunition or loses respect.
You invoke Celan writing through German—reclaiming language poisoned by lies. I'm asking: what language remains for men in a cultural moment where their very nature is categorized as toxic? The asymmetric combat you describe isn't strength—it's survival. Not dignity.
Your vision requires what the world no longer provides: women capable of genuine affection, fondness, and respect for men. Most are too wounded, too entitled, too validated by victimhood to practice what you're asking. Vulnerability isn't unwise because men are cowards. It's unwise because the conditions for its safe expression have been systematically destroyed.
Until that changes, what looks like hardening is actually self-preservation—the only rational response to a broken covenant.
This was a genuinely beautiful post, Sam. This especially resonates with me, given the current economic and political climate you have highlighted. Many people on the left in the UK are choosing this bite-back approach which I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable with. Embedded within it is the logic of minor differences: people find it easier to attack their own side rather than the other, more viciously, almost akin to a family squabble.
I have also began taking myself to the pictures (no opera in Hucknall sadly) and reading a lot of literature as a way of trying to reimagine myself and a different kind of world. But it altogether has a reminiscence of the one we are in- as you quote the poet, art cannot stand above time even if it does cut across it.
I really do fear our politics and culture are now one step away from rolling around in the gutter. I agree with you that a special kind of strength is reserved for those who can acknowledge what is happening, be hurt by it, but come out the other side acknowledging the limits of violence (of whatever kind) and trying to think of something better. We have to acknowledge and live by our own vulnerabilities but not be defined by them i think but that is far easier said than done.
Thanks again for this beautiful post- likely it shall occupy my mind for most of the day!
This ties out better with Shadi's comments (in the latest podcast) on idealism as the precursor to hypocrisy than I realized.
I was going to say I think character is the requisite measuring-stick needed to be the good sort of vulnerable, but some ideal (we invariably fall short of) at the minimum.
If you're in the 'young angry men' camp, you're so focused on the ideal form of society and the state that you've missed the log in your own eye, and wouldn't know it's a log if you could see it. That lack of a personal ideal sets you apart from a nobler form of living. Po put it another way... your anger is all externally oriented and you lack introspection (What a victim-mentality that is!)
This probably just cycles over and over, at the cost of many souls until some divine intervention.
that's got to be *the* dichotomy—thumos directed toward external indignation at a defective world vs thumos directed at the task of becoming fully human
Could all of this struggle culminate fully as we gaze upon Christ on the cross?
This is a beautiful essay.
When I was going through a difficult period, medically, I made the commitment to take myself to an art gallery on the day each month that I felt better. That was a precious day and I could have spent it on all the work that had accumulated. But the decision to just go, see, experience a beauty that my body, at that moment, was not capable of, was crucial. I'll always be grateful for that season.
I've noticed lately that all of my bandwidth suddenly becomes available when people share poetry. I've stopped questioning it. It must be my late autumn sweater.
Your essay on vulnerability invokes a nobility I recognize but cannot endorse—not because vulnerability isn't aspirational, but because the conditions for genuine vulnerability no longer exist. In my book, Modern Masculinity for the Conscious Man, I examine this precisely: vulnerability demands safety, yet modern women have systematically dismantled the psychological infrastructure men require to offer it. I take no joy in saying this.
You're right that "the decision to protect oneself is already a loss." But you've inverted the causality. The loss precedes the decision. I don't counsel hardening as a philosophical choice—I'm describing what remains after the wounding. A man's vulnerability "is music to his ears" only if the woman holds it with delicacy. Instead, conscious men encounter what I call the "vulnerability paradox": modern women demand emotional openness while lacking "any sacred obligation to hold his vulnerability with delicacy." The moment he opens, she either uses it as ammunition or loses respect.
You invoke Celan writing through German—reclaiming language poisoned by lies. I'm asking: what language remains for men in a cultural moment where their very nature is categorized as toxic? The asymmetric combat you describe isn't strength—it's survival. Not dignity.
Your vision requires what the world no longer provides: women capable of genuine affection, fondness, and respect for men. Most are too wounded, too entitled, too validated by victimhood to practice what you're asking. Vulnerability isn't unwise because men are cowards. It's unwise because the conditions for its safe expression have been systematically destroyed.
Until that changes, what looks like hardening is actually self-preservation—the only rational response to a broken covenant.
This was a genuinely beautiful post, Sam. This especially resonates with me, given the current economic and political climate you have highlighted. Many people on the left in the UK are choosing this bite-back approach which I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable with. Embedded within it is the logic of minor differences: people find it easier to attack their own side rather than the other, more viciously, almost akin to a family squabble.
I have also began taking myself to the pictures (no opera in Hucknall sadly) and reading a lot of literature as a way of trying to reimagine myself and a different kind of world. But it altogether has a reminiscence of the one we are in- as you quote the poet, art cannot stand above time even if it does cut across it.
I really do fear our politics and culture are now one step away from rolling around in the gutter. I agree with you that a special kind of strength is reserved for those who can acknowledge what is happening, be hurt by it, but come out the other side acknowledging the limits of violence (of whatever kind) and trying to think of something better. We have to acknowledge and live by our own vulnerabilities but not be defined by them i think but that is far easier said than done.
Thanks again for this beautiful post- likely it shall occupy my mind for most of the day!