In Human Events, the conservative journal, Harvey Mansfield is interviewed by one Benjamin Van Horrick, who really ought to be a character in a 19th-century novel. The subject: Manliness.

I am fascinated by the obsession conservatives have with this subject; liberals just don’t seem to think about it as much (at least, judging from the differing receptions Mansfield’s book has received in conservative and liberal circles). At the risk of sounding partisan, I would suggest that manly men don’t spend quite so much time thinking about being manly. They just are. One wonders if, as they go on and on about why women aren’t manly, and why liberal men aren’t manly, conservative guys aren’t reflecting some greater insecurity. One thing the sexual revolution has accomplished: it has given liberal men the opportunity to come to a fuller understanding of sexuality, which is a) something conservatives lack, and b) explains why all the real sexual pervs (with the possible exception of Jeffrey Epstein) are right-wingers.

In any case, it’s a bit of a nutty interview. Mansfield has a frustrating tendency to make provocative, declarative statements without providing the slightest evidence to support them. (He’ s the Naomi Wolf of conservatism.) We are supposed to believe them because they emanate from…him, Mansfield, about whom there is a conservative cult of personality. But if you haven’t bought into that idolatry, Mansfield’s pronouncements just seem a bit silly.

For example:

“Manly confidence and manliness means an ability to take charge or to be authoritative in that situation. Women also have confidence, but they don’t seek out situations of risk the way the way that manly men do.”

“Boys are being raised in such a way as not to cultivate their manliness. Their manliness is being neglected or ignored or put aside in favor of a gender neutral quality, which you might call feminization, but is meant to be between the sexes, or at least in no way sexist.”

“Women are great critics of men. Under feminism, they’ve lost their faculty or at least their vocation for criticizing men, and I think that’s a great loss.“

I don’t think everything Mansfield says is loopy; some of it is sort of interesting. But if you stumble around in gender politics long enough, throwing out broad generalizations and sex-specific declarations, you’re bound to get something right after a while.

My great question about Mansfield’s work is, what is the point?

I disagree with him about manliness; I think you can find that quality of risk-taking in both men and women, and so I fail to see the sense in trying to define it as a male-specific quality. But even if you agree that “manliness” can be defined and categorized as something generally limited to men…so what? I’ve never heard Mansfield delve into the larger importance of the subject, but I’d like to.