https://www.city-journal.org/toxic-masculinity
Over the weekend, a disturbing video of a group of boys from a Catholic School in Covington, Kentucky catapulted Twitter into one of its regular nervous breakdowns. The video appeared to show the boys surrounding and taunting a lone, elderly Native American man as he chanted and played a drum in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The Indian was a veteran; his demeanor was stoic and dignified. The boys were loud and rowdy, the kind adults routinely cross the street to avoid. They were also—with one or two exceptions—white. A few were wearing MAGA hats. They had just come from the annual anti-abortion March for Life.
In other words, the video could have been scripted by a gender-studies professor from Middlebury, staged by the director of Gillette’s viral ad on toxic masculinity, and given an official seal of approval from the American Psychological Association, the august organization whose recently published guidelines elaborating on the evils of “traditional codes of masculinity” made waves a few weeks ago. There it was: toxic (white) masculinity, for all to see and deplore.
Or so it seemed. As it happens, the video had been substantially edited to leave out some details that, while not fully settling the matter, provided a good deal of mitigating context. If you missed the miserable affair, you should see the accounts given by Rod Dreher or by Robby Soave. For now, let’s consider how “toxic masculinity,” now a cultural meme embraced by the academy, much of the media, psychologists, and even corporate boards, has itself become toxic.
