Well, that’s the MAGA view. I guess you can decide if Galloway’s is better or worse:
“Scott Galloway’s take on “how to be a man,” detailed in his book Notes on Being a Man, centers on the core principles of being a provider, protector, and procreator (PPC), emphasizing economic responsibility, defending others, and healthy romantic relationships, alongside modern advice like developing emotional intelligence, pursuing strength, embracing vulnerability, and practicing simple courtesies such as offering to help with luggage or pouring drinks for others. He stresses that a man’s value comes from creating surplus value, where love given exceeds love received, and encourages men to find purpose and contribute positively to society.
Being a giver is not bad advice for anyone regardless of sex or gender, as is, developing emotional intelligence, and practicing simple courtesies.
Pursuing strength, and being a provider and a protector will attract women, I’m guessing, so it’s probably good advice to men to have that as a goal, if that’s what they want. (As long as they don’t go to the horrible body-builder extreme some men weirdly think is the goal.)
I agree that as a matter of history they are. And as i understand it, as a legal matter, fatherhood is determined primarily by being an economic provider. In other words, if a man has been economically providing for a child, and calls himself the father; then he probably is.
What you are referring to is mostly a quirk of the law to prevent children from being left without a provider, however, fatherhood is mostly determined by genetics if there is doubt. There is presumption of paternity in the case of marriage, but a man can typically dispute it if it’s early enough.
A lot of men don’t have being a provider speak to them, (I do know some men who take pride in being a provider, and I think better of them for it) but that’s what speaks to women as attractive about men, in many cases. Women take a risk when bearing a child that her partner will help provide for it, so it’s pretty logical that would be what they are looking for.
My personal opinion of Scott Galloway is pretty positive. I like what I’ve seen from him. He’s a lib in a time where being so is decidedly uncool so I appreciate that of course.
But beyond his politics, some of his stuff on men and boys does speak to me. I really didn’t enjoy the early years of raising kids. And I felt guilty for it. I wanted to be a coequal partner but it just wasn’t in me to handle the baby and toddler stuff with as much grace and patience as my wife did. Scott basically echoed the same sentiment regarding his kids, saying that he felt his time to shine as age 3+.
That’s largely been my experience and it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
The problem I have with this is distinguishing between “how to be a man” and “how to be a human.” What is the specific role men have that distinguishes them from the rest of humanity? It’s an easy distinction in the MAGA/Traditional view. In a modern view, one that embraces equality, being a good man just means being a good human that happens to be a man. Maybe Galloway defines this I have not read his works.
I would distinguish between wanting to be a provider, and wanting to be a provider “as a man.”
I agree, too, that women want a partner who will provide in all different ways, including economically.
This is more how I see it too.
However, i do not think it is only about equality. It is also about individualism. You are primarily a provider, say, as an individual person. You may also happen to be a man or a woman.
Some people seem to think of themselves as, say, a man who, because he is a good man, then provides. I do not think that is necessarily opposed to equality because nothing about that says that a woman couldn’t also provide. But it is a different way of looking at it.
I believe the implied thrust of the book is that young men are craving a definition of masculinity and if the left doesn’t offer one, the right will/already is.
Also while I’m of course on board with good man = good human, this is dodging the question that young men have. And it’s not acknowledging their lived reality which is that women have made tons of progress in software engineering and men have made almost none in nursing or as dental hygienist. Women out graduate men from college now and high earning women by and large also want high earning men.
We need to offer young people guidance around stuff like that. IDK if Galloway is the guy, but somebody has to be. And this is a really good opportunity, too, because the right wing guys are dog shit role models. Donald Trump. Elon Musk. It’s Nepo kids all the way down. And when Trump like behavior fails to yield Trump like results for the vast majority of men, the left should be there.
The trouble with this, admittedly very progressive, definition is that its the absence of a definition. That’s fine for grown adults whose identity is wrapped up in more advanced things but I think the issue is when you’re young you get a meaningful chunk of your identity from your gender and so the question becomes what are virtuous traits of a man?
If you have no good role models guiding you towards a virtuous model of a man then you fill that void with other things like Trump and Tate, people who Galloway would describe as very unmanly.
Galloway focuses on things like selfless service as being manly, that’s his point about surplus value. Protecting those weaker physically and financially than oneself, etc. I think there’s value in having gendered traits to pursue, it doesn’t preclude women from pursuing them as well. In the same way, as a man, I can be nurturing with my children and that doesn’t make me a woman, even though it might be virtuous for a woman to be nurturing.
It’s a bit of both though, isn’t it? In the past, if you lacked a father as a clear role model, you had a decent chance of finding someone else because that was before the internet where interactions required real people. In the last 30 years, it has become virtual everything, and in the last 5 years, includes work, so those interactions and learning experiences with any potential role model has become near zero. Self correcting mechanisms have broken down.
