The Emerging Counterculture

An article recently appeared at PJ Media that boldly declares physical strength should be central to the “new counterculture” identity. By counterculture it is clear from the article that the author, Stephen McDonald, means opposition to political liberalism and resistance to politically correct orthodoxy. I agree, and I hope this article may signal the emergence of a promising trend.

So as not to be accused of hypocrisy, I will admit that I could stand to lose some weight and get in better shape myself. I also recognize that there are a lot of counterculture types like me, so there is likely a limit to the degree this ideal can be generalized to the resistance as a whole. Real strength and fitness require a significant investment of time and energy.

With that said, masculinity should be idealized among dissidents who are attempting to counter the now dominant narrative. This includes strength and the broader category of fitness, but it should also include traditional masculine qualities like courage, self-confidence and resolution. It should also be accompanied by admiration for traditional masculine virtues like chivalry and honor.

This has long been a theme of the so-called manosphere. The manosphere discusses these masculine traits sometimes in the context of pick-up artistry, which, as what some manospherians would derisively call a trad (traditionalist), I don’t condone. However, it is also a general theme of many manosphere blogs and websites and represents a way to live your life as a refutation of the modern culture that condemns overt masculinity as dangerous and oppressive.

The Art of Manliness website comes to mind as a very relevant example of this theme of masculinity as both a path to self-improvement and a refutation of the current culture.

A reason this article might be evidence of an emerging trend, is because PJ Media is generally considered a pretty mainstream conservative/neocon website. For example, uber-neocons Victor Davis Hanson and Andrew McCarthy write there, and the site is full of a lot of typical interventionist alarmism. As anyone who has inhabited the resistance for even a short time should be aware, neocons have been known to do more than their fair share of politically correct thought policing when it suits their purposes. Just ask Ron and Rand Paul.

Because of neoconservatism’s usual PC squeamishness, I was surprised to see McDonald’s article at PJ media. His article is no weak tea. I don’t know him, but I am almost certain that McDonald is a denizen of the manosphere because his article has manosphere fingerprints all over it. Here is an example of his narrative nonconformity:

We own strength, they are weakness. Each side should embrace the aesthetic that flows naturally from their respective values. We already see this on the Left. Pajama Boy from the infamous 2013 Obamacare ad masterfully captures the male SJW’s hypertrophied self-righteousness and atrophied physique.

Stand a guy that’s done a few months of strength training next to any general in the Left’s man-child army. Which example would other men aspire to? Which example would women (worth knowing) want their sons to grow up into? By stressing physical strength, the counterculture’s members themselves become a means to attract others to the cause.

That’s some strong stuff.

I have little doubt that neocons will continue commissioning PC hit pieces against their opponents when it suits their purposes, but I also believe we are seeing a growing recognition among anti-liberal elements of all types that left-wing SJW’s (Social Justice Warriors), to use McDonald’s term, have grown increasingly hysterical and maximalist and must be resisted.

As I suggested at another venue, as liberalism and the Democrat party have become less focused on economic “justice” issues, and more and more obsessed with PC conspiracy theories about white privilege and the patriarchy, it is becoming increasingly evident that the reigning orthodoxy must be challenged if any semblance of sanity is to remain. It may be wishful thinking, but maybe, just maybe, the neocons, who never tire of reminding us how smart they supposedly are, will recognize how foolish it is to feed the PC beast because, if it is not slain, it will eventually consume them too.

Let’s hope the publication of McDonald’s article at a neocon website is a hopeful sign of willingness on the part of some neocons to resist, rather than enforce or acquiesce to, PC dogma. And with that, Gentleman, let’s hit the gym!