Watching the Superbowl yesterday, I noted three ads. (Side note: Did anyone else think it was peculiar the number of adds with men running around in their underwear?)
Start with the Dodge ad:
Look at the way the life of men is depicted. Notice the look in the eyes of these men.
Next is this add for Flo T.V.
And finally, the one from Dove (which I note is for a body wash which tells me that they are now thinking of men as women with beards, but I digress):
From all three of these ads is a shift, and a profound one. There is an acknowledgment, especially in the Dodge ad, that life overall is not a good one for these men, and these men are most men. In the Dodge ad, all the man has left is his car, in the Flo T.V. bit the man has no spine, and in the Dove ad the man faces all the ordinary obstacles that confront all men, and he is not depicted as complaining, but there are moments of despair in his face.
There is despair and resignation on all these men.
Thoreau was wrong, or perhaps men were different in his time. Men do not live lives of quiet desperation. Most men live lives of quiet despair.
A person that advocates for marriage, that wishes the above on the lives of other men, are the ones that are committing an unconscionable act. There are those that say that if a man picks wisely, they will be happily married.
Perhaps, but if that is so, then few men are wise and encouraging men to embrace the sin of pride in thinking they are wise, is merely promoting the same old suffering for them. It is cruel to encourage such. It is a sin to do so.
Surely, if you live and are a member of a very conservative church, with women that are raised from birth in that setting, then you may be successful. You may own the future, but for the rest of the men out there, encouraging marriage is a living death. Marriage is asking them to sacrifice themselves for a society that does not care for them.
It is just as misguided to say that game makes it a safe bet for getting married. It does not. It merely improves the odds and the odds are still bad.
I would not wish marriage on my enemies.
There are only two sane choices for men: it is either game and going their own way. It is our duty to point out the dangers and the pitfalls. To warn them.
Women are not changing in the near future. It is men that must change and it is not going back to the old traditional roles that will win this battle of the sexes. To do so, is to go back to the paradigm that has been destroyed. It is backward thinking. It is going back to the house that has been firebombed during the war and setting up camp because it is “home.”
It is time to abandon the house and strike out into new territory.
