So if you’re a rational male presented with that option, you’d probably tell whomever offered it to go piss up a rope.  Yet the role I’m describing was integral to the survival of the tribe, so what did the tribes do to persuade their young males to willingly accept a job no one in their right mind would want?  They created a ritual, one so incredibly awful that any terrible thing a man might face afterwards would seem easy by comparison. They also went one step further and said that unless the young males participated in the ritual, they would be ostracized from the rest of the group. Basically, they had no choice but to man up.

before they were yelling at you to get the hell off their lawns, these guys were hanging their asses out to get shot at.

It sounds like a shitty deal on its face, but those rites of passage were more or less good for everybody, particularly the male forced to go through it.  It gave him the confidence to know that he could take a lot of punishment and still keep going.  Blessed with that confidence,  they could honour their manly responsibilities, which necessarily involved things like providing food for the tribe and protecting it in times of crises. Naturally, the men who did their job the best enjoyed the most respect and privilege – women wanted them and men wanted to be them. Of course, as we became more agrarian, then more industrialized, and then more civilized, the need for rites of passage diminished to the point where they’re practically non-existent today. These days, guys think they’re a man if they buy their first car, or get a job, or get laid,  which of course excludes a whole segment of males who don’t drive, are unemployed, or entered the priesthood (okay, that’s maybe a bad example).  An argument can be made for fatherhood being the first big stop on the manhood safari, but a lot of men are putting off fatherhood until later in their lives, and the ones doing it early – well, keep in mind my data is highly subjective and largely anecdotal, but the ones becoming fathers early in life are not exactly blessed with all the requisite skills  to shape a young mind in a focussed world view. By that,  I mean they’re horny twerps who put the condom on wrong.  The point is there are lots of males out there who aren’t boys but aren’t fully men, either. I’m not the only man-child walking the streets.

Sadly, when it comes to rites of passage nowadays, this seems to be the best we can do

Relatively speaking, modern day “rites of passage” are easy, even a little fun. But rites of passage aren’t supposed to be fun –  they’re supposed to be transformative, a vivid reminder of the value of and need for manly virtues.  The pride of manhood comes from knowing you did the hardest thing of your life and you made it through, a concept at odds with a culture that want’s everything simpler, easier, and as fast as possible.   The only thing approaching a proper rite of passage these days is war  - they’re scary, dangerous, and fought primarily by young men.  While a lot of the ones who survive oftentimes come away traumatized, there’s probably as many who are left with an intuitive understanding of virtues like courage, duty, sacrifice, honor, and resilience.  It’s telling that the generation that fought WWII is commonly referred to as “The Greatest Generation.”

Am I suggesting that for me to be a Better Man, for any male to be a Better Man, we have to join the army, or something equally as life-threatening?  Not necessarily, but certainly I think it behooves all men to undertake something that  brings out the virtues that rites of passage are designed to expose, namely courage and self-sacrifice.  In the end, rites of passage are about putting the needs of the group ahead of your own, and that’s something you can learn anywhere if you look hard enough.  Where I’m going to find it, I can’t say – I just hope it doesn’t require me to pull a “Mardudjara” and have my penis filleted like a hot dog.

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