Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    
    
    Well, for those of us that haven't read the book, can you give us a
    summary?
    
        Greg

Bly is suggesting that American men (he doesn't say what percentage but hints
at a general situation) are missing out on the developmental phase of growing
from boys to men. Bly says that men, between the ages of 8 to 12, need other men
influences in their lives, like Fathers and Grandfathers, to help them through
this phase. Bly uses the term 'initiation ceremony' to capture the essence of 
this developmental process.

Bly suggests that in American society the female influences exist but the male
influences aren't there, or don't understand their role at this time in a boys
life.

Paul.

    I don't think it's the female influence that puts boys into soccer,
    football, baseball, and scouting between the ages of 8 and 12.  I'd say
    it's the overcompensating competitive urge of the male - but it's not,
    repeat NOT, a good role model...
    
    -dick

    "competitive urge" is not good?  Perhaps you mean just the
    overcompensating is not good?  Who measures what is and what
    is not "overcompensating"?  Examples?
    
    Bubba

    
    
    Dick,
    
     I don't mean this in a hostile manner, but, is there anything nice you
    can say about men??
    
    David

    Re .5
    
    Sure, David.  I can even cite examples.
    
    Excruciatingly beautiful music:
    
    	Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings
    
    And poetry:
    
    	William Shakespeare, Sonnet 3 :
    
    		Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
    		Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
    
    Brilliant oratory:
    
    	Marcus Tullius Cicero. first oration against Catiline:
    
    		Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
    		(How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?)
    
    Wonderful scientific and physical discoveries:
    
    	Albert Einstein:
    
    		E = mc^2
    
    And on and on.  For each of these categories I can cite women's works
    also.  Like those of Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, Emily Dickinson, Eleanor
    Roosevelt, Marie Curie...
    
    I can also cite some pretty negative examples:
    
    Genocide for its own sake:
    
    	Adolf Hitler, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question
    
    Rapacity and cronyism:
    
    	Lucius Cornelius Sulla, wholesale proscription and murder of rich
    	Romans, sale of confiscated properties to cronies for paltry sums
    
    Misguided religious fervor:
    
    	Tom�s de Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisition
    
    Unbridled personal greed at others' expense:
    
    	Don King, boxing promotion
    
    Shall I go on?  I can't seem to find very many women's contributinos to
    these fields...
    
    -dick

    Then, I assume that the premis is that boys raised by divorced or
    single mothers or a lesbian couple are at risk of not having the
    proper male role models in their lives???
    
    What about girls being raised by divorced or single men or a gay
    couple, or perhaps this is not the discussion in this string; that
    is, that the discussion is about boys in that situation. 
    
    My observations are that most boys seem to survive being raised by
    caretakers who are female.  They still seem to emerge from boyhood
    as men who act like men.  There are many other sources of male role
    models for boys, such as: non relative men, and other boys.
    
    Jeff

<    Then, I assume that the premis is that boys raised by divorced or
<    single mothers or a lesbian couple are at risk of not having the
<    proper male role models in their lives???
    
   Jeff,

   The premis and Robert Bly have little to do with homosexuality or
   being without a father present in that sense.  Since in even the
   most normal home the male is missing most of the childs life due to
   working outside the home and the current family being single
   generational.  [I know that is a generalization.  ;) ]

   The idea is men go from boyhood to being a man without any initiation
   or time to grieve the loss of their childhood days.  Bly goes in to
   this by explaining how the industrial age removed the man from the
   house and that man is responsable for initiating the son to manhood.
   He uses trible cultures and cultures with greatly extended families
   to explain and illustrate his point.

   The local PBS station gave Bly much airtime so I listened being
   curious.  That's my understanding of it all. 

   Allison

    
    > women's contibutions to these
    
      Nor do I find an abundance of examples, but that may be due to the
    fact that I have not been looking so eagerly for them....
    
    
    David

    I agree with Bly. This society that we live in does not have an
    initiation ceremony. I believe that older men need to initiate boys
    into manhood. My feelings: Fathers probably could initiate their sons
    but, I feel that uncles or friends or whoever would do a much better
    job. I was initiated at a "gathering". These were men that I didn't
    know at the beginning of the weekend but, by the end I felt very close
    to them. That weekend was the most important weekend in my life. It put
    me on another path. This is one man's feelings on initiation rites.
    
    Mitakuye Oyasin
    
    Michael
    
    

re .6 & .9

The subject doesn't really bear much thinking of, but two women certainly
do spring to mind;  Lucrezia Borgia and Imelda Marcos.

joyce.

    	Of all the women British leaders, from Boadicea through Matilda to
    Maggie I can only think of one, Queen Mary, who was not a wartime
    leader, and she has a reputation for burning Protestant bishops at the
    stake. Only one of them, Queen Elizabeth I, seems to have explored
    every possible avenue for peace, and every delaying tactic, before
    accepting war with Spain as inevitable.

Michael, I'm really interested in this 'weekend' that you mentioned. Can you
explain briefly what happened.

How did it change your life ? In what ways ? 

Paul.

Don't forget Queen Isabella.

    What kind of inititation?  "Boys don't have the time to grieve their
    loss of childhood".  Why not?  They find time to watch enough TV.  I
    don't mean to be flip with that comment.  I just don't understand why
    they don't have the time.  Maybe they don't MAKE the time, or aren't
    encouraged to make the time.  One hundred years ago boys were so busy
    with chores or supporting the family they wouldn't have time either,
    would they?
    
    I suspect that what we really mean is that the American Culture doesn't
    help boys sufficiently into manhood.
    
    I thought the transition from boyhood to manhood was a graduall process
    which took years?  How is it one weekend suddenly makes a boy a man?
    
    I work full time, yet I don't think my son suffers from not enough time
    with me.  (I will have to ask him to make sure though).  
     
    I help him from boy to man hood daily by helping him grow up.  Unless
    one event is truely enlightening I don't see how there can be an
    instant transition from boy to man.  Who is fully grown up anyway?
    
    Jeff

    There was a very interesting article in Playboy a couple of months ago
    [yup, I really read the articles!! ;)].
    
    It's premise was about kids in general, not just boys, but I think it's
    germaine:
    
    Basically the author concluded that kids today are not learning social
    skills because they are busy passively watching TV.  Interestingly, the
    author did not think the cause was "sex and violence" on TV, but merely
    the fact that time spent watching TV is time when children are not
    learning social skill through playing with adults and other children.
    Even if you kept your kids on a steady diet of PBS and "60 Minutes,"
    they could grow up with deficient social skills.
    
    It may seem that a single initiation "ceremony" wouldn't be
    significant, but if you think of the anticipation and planning that a
    boy would go through in the years leading up to his initiation, an
    initiation could be looked at as a lifetime of learning.  And
    certainly, you couldn't do this preparation while watching TV.
    
    Jon

    
     Guess my Grandfather was right when he called the toob an idiot box.
    
    TC
    

    What qualifies as "initiation?"
    
    I think this is more of Bly's psychobabble, if you ask me.
    
    And no, I don't feel a repressed need to go beat on a drum, thank you
    for asking.

    Glad I made it okay without having to wade through Bly's book ( I think
    it's "Iron John") and have no intention of reading a book that
    encourages men to dress up like ten little Indians and beat tom-toms
    in the woods. Sounds like an extreme case of b.s. that made him some
    good money so more power to him. He's an amateur though and should take
    some lessons from that old huckster, the Maharishi (?) that sucked in
    the Beatles, Mia Farrow, etc. into parting with lots of $$$$ while
    sitting around listening to that horrible sitar music and chanting a 
    bunch of nonsense chants. I am sure there are lots of those desiring
    to be "real men" (whatever THAT means) who are anxiously awaiting an
    "Iron John 2". Bly should strike for all the $$$$ he can get out of 
    these people before they get the idea he just MIGHT be b.s.ing them to
    the maximum (i.e. maximum profits).
    

Terms like 'initiation' or 'initiation ceremony' are relatively easy to
comprehend. Bly avoids the esoteric world of psychology in using these.

I guess Bly is right then. Some American men don't even experience a change,
except perhaps that they grow some additional hair and their balls drop. Some
haven't even questioned the development.

Do a gender swap. Do girls experience an 'initiation ceremony' ?

 

>Do a gender swap. Do girls experience an 'initiation ceremony' ?

Uh, yeah, whether they like it or not, I think it is called menses.

jimc

    I've often thought that the closest thing modern Americans have to a
    "rite of passage" is getting their driver's license. It's something
    that indicates a new level of freedom, power, recognition by others...
    The sort of "now I am an adult" (more or less) rite that older
    societies used to conduct specifically to demonstrate that the young
    people were now considered members-in-full of the society. [And no,
    the onset of menstruation isn't an equivalent of this for girls; for
    one thing, it's treated so differently from family to family or social
    group to social group. For girls who find their child-bearing
    capability the most significant thing in their lives, it can be their
    personal "rite of passage," but for most of the women I know, the onset
    just meant a new level of annoyance that had no bearing on their goals
    or their daily lives.]
    
    Whether it would help today's young people to have a society-recognized
    "rite of passage" or not, I couldn't say, but I _think_ it's part of
    what Bly & co. are trying to emulate.
    
    -b

.22> I've often thought that the closest thing modern Americans have to a
.22> "rite of passage" is getting their driver's license. It's something
.22> that indicates a new level of freedom, power, recognition by others...
 

For me it was my first hunting trip with dad.  I was 14, I think, and it
was the first time I remember feeling like I was being invited to join an
"adult" activity, and when I first started to know Dad as a person rather
than as a parent.  AND Mom and my sisters weren't invited!!

Either that or the first time I passed out at a party in college.  Boy,
those were the days!!  ;-)

Jon

    
    Initiation ceremonies into adulthood are usually interwoven into the
    religious structure, since that is where most rituals survive best.
    Thus we have the Bar Mitzvah, the Confirmation (maybe a little early),
    etc. These ceremonies induct children into religious adulthood.
    
    Additionally in American society, there is the "Sweet Sixteen" party
    for girls. Old-fashioned yes, but not completely gone. Today, some
    parents are making their daughters' menses a milestone, celebrating
    with dinner or a trip or something. For us also, the first bra was
    another landmark. (Don't laugh, I'm serious!)
    
    And, on the steamy side... there's a guy's first sexual experience.  I
    remember watching when Bundy took his son to the girly bar in "Married
    with Children". It was to mark a special occasion. And many men DO
    remember their "first time". Some men were even initiated by dad, who
    took his son to a brothel. Not unheard of, just a bit more rare today.
    
    So, this idea of an initiation is NOT unheard of in US society. We just
    didn't always pin a label on it.

    If you think that American male isn't threatened, try to organize a male
    only function in your church or community. Even Father & Son events are
    taboo today. However, you can still organize father & daughter events and 
    will even be thought of as a wonderful and open minded father for coming
    up with the idea.


    Jim

    And it's okay, if you're a woman, to organize mother & daughter events. 
    I've never seen or heard of a mother & son event...

	In college sororities, they very often have annual Father-Daughter
	days, but frats don't seem to have Father-Son days.

	I sense a pattern here. . .

    Paul,
    
    Briefly? Well here's an attempt. What happened? About 40 men got
    together to explore male masculinity. What it meant to be a man in
    today's society. I entered that weekend scared. Scared of not knowing
    what feelings I'd encounter and then how would I deal with them. We
    came from all walks of life. We had all come from families that were
    pretty much dysfunctional. We shared alot of very personal feelings
    with each other. To give you an idea of our backgrounds: sons of
    alcoholics, drug addicts, men who had been molested as children,
    sons of physically/verbally abusive parents, sons of absent fathers
    (father was physically there but, not for the son, father deserted
    family) just to name a few.
    
    As far as "what happened", well, Friday night we set up our camp. I
    helped build an Inipi (sweat lodge). All of our talks were around a
    fire. We had a central meeting point. We sat in a circle. Yes, we 
    beat drums. I had never experienced the sound of that many men beating
    on drums at the same time. You could feel your body resonate. For me
    a very moving experience. There were three facilitators. One runs
    the Austin Mens Center. That would be Marvin Allen. Allen Maurer
    is editor of Man! Magazine. Dick Prosapio was the ceremonialist.
    It ended on Sunday. It was then that the initiation was held.
    I feel like I'm trying to explain a really good movie I just saw.
    I can give you mechanics but, that's about it. This is something
    you need to experience your self.
    
    How did it change my life. Well for starters it really helped my
    relationship with my wife. I had been carrying around alot of baggage
    having to do with my father. That weekend helped me deal with that,too.
    Does this help Paul?
    
    Mitakuye Oyasin
    
    Michael
    

    RE: .26
    
>    I've never seen or heard of a mother & son event...

    Two schools that I know of have an annual Mother Son Tea. One is
    Central Catholic HS in Lawrence MA. They've had one for years and
    years. The other is St Joseph school in Salem NH. That one has been
    running for about 4-5 years. St Joseph also runs an annual Father
    Daughter Breakfast. (CC isn't co-ed.) I thought such things were
    common.
    
    			Alfred

>    About 40 men got together to explore male masculinity.

Is there another kind?

    
    
    
    
    Growing up I watched my brothers go to many father/son things.
    Only they didnt do it with dad cause he was not in the picture.
    They went with either Gramps or thier respective godfathers.
    Mom always was den leader of the boyscouts while they were 
    involed, and helped put together alot of the father/son stuff.
    Maybe it just doesnt happen any more.  Or maybe they just never
    really labeled them as Father/Son events.  I can still remember
    feeling a bit akward at being one of a handful of girls at the
    Soapbox Derby events they held.  Those were father/son things.
    As were the camping trips.  I wouldnt think that scouting has
    changed that much.  Or maybe it has?
    
    Michele