A New World Disorder - New's Flash: There's a Male Identity Crisis

Seriously, today's LAX has two stories, which when read together, explain the War in Iraq and a crisis in Christianity: Wimpy men with "masculinity" issues.

first, the time piece on the Iraq study group crystallizes what many biographers of Dubya have noticed: the guy has serious Daddy issues; the group's whole report is around, well, let the opening speak for itself:

Some bipartisan commissions try to move public opinion on contentious national issues. Others try to help Congress find compromise solutions to thorny problems.

The Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), had a different, and unusual, goal: persuading President Bush to change his mind about staying the course in Iraq.


'This is highly unusual,' an advisor to the group said Wednesday after the panel released its report. "It's one thing for people inside the administration to tell the president what to do. But for an outside group to say, 'Here, son, let us give you a road map for your foreign policy,' that's remarkable."

To try to make it easier for Bush — a man who prides himself on consistency and who consequently is criticized by opponents as stubborn

WELL SON, don't read the column one headline, "MANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS, "Convinced that men are dodging church because it saps their masculinity, some evangelists invoke a tougher Jesus to get the rams back into the fold."

Dammmmmmm.

This actually makes perfect sense. I've just finished a GLOBALIZATION seminar with the world most famous sociologists, Manuel Castells, on the subject. There is massive, world-wide dislocation going on, GLOOOBBALLL, at the level of identity and us men, are being forced to change. And most of us don't like it. Women actually want equality, or at least to be able to get naked on Gootube. 3rd world laborers DO want ALL OF OUR jobs, whether it's obvious through immigration or in the more basic structural changes (job losses due to "increases in productivity" with increasing job INsecurity). Less pay and everyone's working more hours and feeling in-se-cure.

Somethings got to give, so it's not surprising that Christian men are feeling a little insecure. Join the club.

POSTSCRIPT: In an ironic confirmation of my theory, Samantha Bonar wrote a funny bit about the female inverse. So take one male identity crises, by extension, you'll have a hetero-fem. dating identity crisis. Some men are actually EVOLVING and, accoding to Bonar, women now experience Post Traum. Stress (Relationship) Syndrome (Disorder) don't know how to adjust to boyfriends that treat them right.

Update 2 [a decade later]: Julia Baird wrote a bulls-eye of a piece that captures the deep roots of this crisis, What I know About Famous Men's Penises. It captures that point I was trying to make in a hilarious, if hard to forget, fashion. And if you read this far and bother reading any other old pieces, excuse the gonzo-overwhelmed-overexcited-by-grad-school energy.