Traditional ideas of masculinity are poisoning our society.

I have stumbled upon another article that I think would be very interesting to share on this blog. This article is written by Howard Cunnell who is currently on a journey to move in the direction of love and compassion. Cunnell discusses, in his article, the traditional ideas of masculinity and how they are 'poisoning' our society. Cunnell describes how he once thought that to be a 'man' you must be tough and violent but after reading the Buddhist writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, he began to think about the kind of masculine heroes that are portrayed in western culture. "False heroes find it easier to make war than deal with the emptiness in their own souls." This is a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh that brought Cunnell to this next statement: "Clearly there are multiple ways of being masculine – there’s no such thing as a single, fixed essential masculinity. If you’ve ever been peaceful or angry, if you have ever loved and hated, then you know you can choose to be either of these things. We are the result of our thoughts and actions. Individual men contain and express multiple ways of being. We change often during our lifetimes." Cunnell provides more examples and readings that helped changed his views on masculinity and put him on a more peaceful path. I found this article very interesting because it is written by a man who was once so affected by traditional views but now has to come to realize that one does not have to tough or violent to be 'masculine.' His statement on how people change during their lifetimes related to what we have discussed in class on how masculinity, over time, has changed in many ways. Cunnell's relation to Buddhist readings throughout the article was also very interesting as it a gave a new interesting perspective to analyze masculinity, especially in western culture.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/15/power-violence-define-men-peace-masculinity