Wu and Wen, Sword and Pen
Mar. 17th, 2005 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frustratedpilotHey.
The other day on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", there was an interesting segment about male body image, in the East and in the West. I can't link to it right now but I'll try to summarize: in the West, especially America, there is a gap involving perceptions of what men think women want in male physique and what women claim they really want. Namely, women only want men that are marginally more buff than average, whereas men are overshooting this ideal by a factor of three.
I blame this (if you can call it "blame") on how we as a culture choose our Alpha Males. I don't want to get into this at depth, but right now we seem to value brawn over brains and force over accord. Or at least, this male value is overriding legitimate unigender concerns about fitness for civil duty.
In the radio program, the commentator mentioned Bruce Lee and his influence on the current Asian concept of the Alpha Male. Sure, he undoubtedly had great physical prowess, but he also was gifted with great intelligence and these traits together were ultimately better than the sum of the parts. Pen and Sword in Accord, to quote an Asian maxim.
Alternatively, in the companion book of the TV series "Rock N Roll" (which my brother has stolen from me), the article about Punk relates that to have a successful revolution you must have both thinkers and thugs: the thinkers decide which parts of the old regime must be preserved and which must be extirpated--the thugs carry out the orders of the thinkers without mercy.
America seems to be run by the thugs and has no respect for its thinkers. We still need the thugs, but we can't have them running things forever. Else we risk our own extirpation.
The other day on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", there was an interesting segment about male body image, in the East and in the West. I can't link to it right now but I'll try to summarize: in the West, especially America, there is a gap involving perceptions of what men think women want in male physique and what women claim they really want. Namely, women only want men that are marginally more buff than average, whereas men are overshooting this ideal by a factor of three.
I blame this (if you can call it "blame") on how we as a culture choose our Alpha Males. I don't want to get into this at depth, but right now we seem to value brawn over brains and force over accord. Or at least, this male value is overriding legitimate unigender concerns about fitness for civil duty.
In the radio program, the commentator mentioned Bruce Lee and his influence on the current Asian concept of the Alpha Male. Sure, he undoubtedly had great physical prowess, but he also was gifted with great intelligence and these traits together were ultimately better than the sum of the parts. Pen and Sword in Accord, to quote an Asian maxim.
Alternatively, in the companion book of the TV series "Rock N Roll" (which my brother has stolen from me), the article about Punk relates that to have a successful revolution you must have both thinkers and thugs: the thinkers decide which parts of the old regime must be preserved and which must be extirpated--the thugs carry out the orders of the thinkers without mercy.
America seems to be run by the thugs and has no respect for its thinkers. We still need the thugs, but we can't have them running things forever. Else we risk our own extirpation.
