It Is Good, Actually

How "abuse" may be abused - Why Male Aggression and Competitiveness is Good, Actually

To the mind which not only loves to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but prefers to boil the baby in the bathwater and then proceeds to stomp the baby to pieces and oblivion, the thought that a thing abused can still be fundamentally good, is itself one of those babies deserving to be boiled in bathwater and then stomped.

The thought that it is good to have kids and a family of one's own; that it is good to love your family first before extending benevolence outside the home; that being tribal is good; that hierarchy is not only normal but good; that authority is not only natural but desirable; that parents should leave inheritances for their children; that aggression and combativeness in men is good and normal; that sweetness and grace in women is good and to be desired; that a father’s rule (the patriarchy) is good and beautiful; that aspiring towards ideals is right; that verbal acuity is good and preferable in women; that men “should not cry”; that men should repress their emotions; that all these things which now have bad reputations are good is something which the mind that takes “abuse” as its adjudicator for all things cannot accept. One more: generalisations are good, actually.

Even “abuse” has now been abused. Does this mean that “abuse” ceases to be good as a word depicting a real state of affairs? Not in the least. For abuse does not remove use. And although misuse may result in the denaturing of an object, we may not say that the object ceases to be fundamentally good. A hammer may be used to bash someone’s head in, but it does not make the hammer bad. For the hammer is fundamentally good, made for a purpose: to drive nails in. This does not make the hammer bad, fundamentally; it makes the use of the hammer both inappropriate and bad. Inappropriate —that is, improper— because in the more general case, one uses the hammer for a thing not its purpose; and specifically because the hammer was used as an instrument to produce grief. The hammer is good, even if used for bad ends.

As such, if one takes abuse as an excuse for discarding the baby, the one who discards the baby abuses “abuse” through misuse of such considerations. Because abuse is a good and right consideration to be had when dealing with things. Even “abuse” must be protected from abuse. To call just about any inconvenient thing abuse is to make everything into abuse, therefore making nothing abuse. Even then, abuse can only be rightly seen and considered in light of true and proper use. Abuse means nothing apart from good and proper use.

Which is why good and good use ought first to be considered. To begin considering what constitutes abuse before one settles what something is good for is to put, not only the cart before the horse, but even the tail of the horse on its nose. It is to take what comes after in the right order of things and put it in front. It is giving preeminence to the things which are actually posteminent. That is nothing short of abuse.

Therefore, if we consider that distinct and apart from abuse that some things are good, we are less likely and less willing to tear things down to pieces and try rebuilding them from scratch. This is the fundamental difference between the reformer’s posture and the revolutionary’s psyche: the reformer receives, accepts, and celebrates the fundamental goodness of things. He admits that there are given elements of life, society, and institutions that are good at their core, distinct from the decay, entropy, and corruption that follow closely after human things. The reformer receives the good and celebrates it. Which is why he is a reformer. Because he receives the sacred burden of maintaining the good and eradicating or minimising the corruption which now defaces the beauty of the good portions. The reformer, knowing the good he inherits, knows that —in the words of Sir Roger Scruton—“inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship.”

The revolutionary on the other hand, does not so often receive the given good. He prefers to create his good apart from receiving it. And since he must make space for it, he may decide to demolish the current thing to its last bits so that he might construct his own edifice in its place. Especially also if he considers the current thing an obstacle to the “real” good he wishes to create. As such, the nuclear family must go; to give space to “free love.” The rule of the father must go, to provide room for the matriarchal nursery. Distinctive masculinity and femininity must give way to nebulous androgyny and a bubble cloud of “humanity, empathy, and connection.” In short, one may say that the reformer is a maintenance personnel, and the revolutionary a dreamer and architect.

But what is good is good, especially if it is well-ordered to its proper end. And even if it runs the risk of not being well-ordered, a good thing contains in itself the indication of its proper end; just as an orange seed contains within itself the potential to become an orange tree and eventually an orange. Notwithstanding whether this orange does not fulfill its potential.

Hierarchy then is good, for it is intended towards order, and order is the first need of man; else everything remains in chaos. Regardless of how those in these hierarchies may use them towards other unintended ends —unintended in purpose, not of man’s will, of course. As, for instance, when a governor uses his position as governor to impoverish the commonwealth and establish his lineage for life through stolen wealth. Even at that, the public’s ire against such an act and man draws from the fact that such a governor has abused his privileges and shirked his responsibilities. His actions, because they depart from the proper use of hierarchy, stir righteous anger in the observers and his subjects. And this anger is only righteous because the abuse contrasts with the right use.

Generally speaking, things tend toward abuse when they are taken either as things pointing to themselves and not a larger purpose, fitting into a grander whole; as when Orestes Brownson warns scholars in his An Oration On The Scholar’s Mission that

“The scholar’s mission is to instruct and inspire the race in reference to the general end, progress, for which God has made and placed us here…The mortal sin of every aristocracy, whether literary, scientific, military, or political, is by no means in the inequality it implies, produces, or perpetuates; but in the fact that it regards itself as a privileged order, specially endowed for its own special benefit.”

That is, good things as parts and members of a larger whole.

And the other, like the first above, when they are taken as a totalising principle; as the summary of all things, the one answer to everything, and the “one ring to rule them all.” Especially when the suffix ‘-ism’ gets unwittingly attached to such a thing.

I say unwittingly because I recognise the linguistic value of the suffix. It is one of those things that are good; in this case, especially because it helps us to transpose from particulars to abstracts; from things themselves to abstract names with which we can continue running a seamless ratiocination. Just as we see in technical jargon, which is itself useful within its domain, “ism” allows for smooth coinage and to transform tactile objects of thought into doctrines.

However, beyond this realm of language and doctrine, some take isms so seriously as to make all of life into what the ism is attached to. And this is noteworthy of ideologies, which, operating as a closed system of ideas, do so remotely and away from the things themselves, becoming Procrustean in their treatment of those things. As like when everything is looked through the lenses of a particular thinker, say Karl Marx, when in fact they do not cohere. As such, Marxism may be taken by some to be the theory that explains everything. Whereas the true thoughts of Karl Marx are at their strongest in the matters of politics and economics rather than metaphysics —although metaphysics may be implicated.

Again, one may not sneer at all isms. But you must decipher whether it is of good use or not.

To return to the things that are “good, actually,” I will briefly discuss the mildly controversial case of aggression and combativeness in men. It is especially mildly controversial for the reason that while many do not give it active consideration, they unconsciously hold that aggression in men is bad and only necessary because of the disheveled state of world affairs. They think of it not as an essential attribute of the masculine, but as an evolutionary trait and disposition developed for use as a species. They somewhat believe that in a utopia, where all needs are met and there are no chaotic states of being or need for survival, the aggression in males would wither and become at the least vestigial. I do not believe this is so.

For reasons that boys do not only need aggression and combativeness for survival, but also for leisure. Now leisure is the prefiguration of a perfect world. It is utopia locked into pockets and pieces of time which we earn here and there. Leisure is what all our striving is for. We strive at business so that we might be at leisure. Leisure is the culmination of work and business, and productive endeavours. It is our occasional glimpse of utopia. Leisure, contrary to common consideration, is not mere rest and recreation and preparation for more work. Leisure is the goal.

Yet, even while at leisure, especially while at it, men’s aggression is not abated, only redirected to leisure. As such, even leisure, at its best, requires the exertion of body and mind, whether in sporting activities or in intellectual jousting. One must not think of leisure as mere layabouting and idling. While at leisure, at bars, parks, and in every other site that men have always taken to relax together as men, aggression always proceeded in the form of arguments, debates, and all sorts of competition. Trust men to make fun things into sports, sports out of fun things, and even Olympic standard events out of the sheer competitiveness which emerges from a friend group.

Think of it, men have fight clubs to blow off steam; to obtain catharsis. Where women would cry instead—which is good, fitting, and proper. And given time, organisation, and willing sponsorship, those brawls and show of masculine prowess morph into global events which other spectators —largely men, participate in for a rush of leisurely adrenaline. Who is to say that we would not wrestle in our utopia? If, especially, of course, our utopia is organic and flowing from physiology, rather than synthetic, where our adrenaline is supplied to us through drugs and other means.

Men love the rush of this manly adrenaline. Whether they recognise or admit of such. Boys start to show you that they enjoy this rush of life. They do not know what it is used for (or even why it evolved if we may so grant it). But per intentionality, they can tell that they desire to rise and conquer —whether by brawls or brains—is something they would rather not have circumcised out of them. It is therefore a disservice to them to address male aggression and combativeness as nothing more than a utilitarian need which, now because it has been abused, must be cultivated out of those boys or make them into sweet male girls.

The idea that men should, “man up” is, in fact, good. For it contains the notion that men should act in a way that is fitting and proper to their constitution. Certainly, this can be and is usually abused. Yet, it is fundamentally good. It is good for men to rein in their emotions, to be temperate, and to express their emotions as appropriate to the correct object to which their emotions intend. Male aggression, combativeness, and competition are good, actually. As are so many other things which this essay cannot treat.

But we might at least mention some things which are “good, actually.”

• Loyalty to one’s tribe is good, actually.

• Kinship is good, actually.

• Hierarchy is good, actually.

• Inequality is good, actually.

• Authority is good, actually.

• Romance is good, actually.

• Marriage (as in monogamy between man and wife) is good, actually.

• Aspiring towards ideals is good, actually.

• Wanting kids from your own loins is good, actually.

• Indoctrinating your kids is good, actually.

• The patriarchy is good, actually.

• Men kneeling for kings rather than fawning over actors is good and dignifying, actually.

• [Fill in the blank]

All that God has made is good, actually. Valete.

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Here, your meme.