Robert Bly on manhood Archived Message Posted by Ian M on December 5, 2019, 9:38 pm Somewhat off-topic but might be good medicine for some... I've recently been reading Bly's 1990 book, 'Iron John: A Book About Men' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_John:_A_Book_About_Men - which interprets an old European initiation tale about a king's son finding a hairy wild man at the bottom of a forest lake, applying its messages to the plight of modern males who lack initiation rites or positive/generative contact with older men to help them attain responsible adulthood. Apparently it helped spark a 'mythopoetic men's movement' in the US during the 1980s and 90s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythopoetic_men%27s_movement Bly respects feminism and its liberating effects for women but argues that men need their own movement to find a positive masculine identity, and that mythic contact with a 'king', a 'warrior' and a 'wild man' in the company of other men is the way to accomplish that. I'm not describing it very well... Here's an old video of Bly and collaborator Michael Meade: The part of Iron John that rang especially true for me was his description of the 'three realms' - mythic, physical and internal - and how there are kings, warriors, wild men and other character archetypes on all 3 levels. When damage is done to those figures on one level it is felt keenly in both the others - so routine betrayals by political leaders hurts internal sovereignty as well as the whole mythic concept of leadership (of course from the anarchist point of view there shouldn't be +any+ kings, but the mythic point of view is a different kettle of fish apparently). Same goes for warriors - if your inner warriors routinely get trampled on and fail to maintain the integrity of your personal boundaries against attack from external agents (be they your parents, schoolteachers, bullies, bosses etc) then you will fail to rise up in defense of anything you value in the physical world. Indeed it might be impossible to feel strongly towards +anything+, and if these 'warriors' are subdued in a large part of the population it will give free reign to the Destroyers running rampant for their own gain. And the wild man, well, if he has no place in a highly domesticated, tightly controlled mythology of human 'progress' then there will be fear, indecision, submissive cringing and a basic lack of energy and drive both internally and in collective social behaviour. Here's Bly's reading of the Iron John story: Anyway, I hope that's not too 'woo woo' a subject to get into here. I thought I'd put it up in case it might help somebody else like it helped me. Or in a different way... Is it wrong that I'm glad turtleman isn't still around to come in and dominate this topic? cheers, I Message Thread: Robert Bly on manhood - Ian M December 5, 2019, 9:38 pm Dmitry Orlov's vignettes from Russia, where he now lives with his Russian wife and children, make it - Old (Most) Contemptible Twat December 6, 2019, 9:15 am Re: Dmitry Orlov's vignettes from Russia, where he now lives with his Russian wife and children, make it - Ian M December 7, 2019, 3:09 pm Slagging those that cannot reply. - Thomas Newfield December 8, 2019, 7:37 pm Re: Slagging those that cannot reply. - Ian M December 9, 2019, 9:43 am Dude, let the monkey out - Thomas Newfield December 9, 2019, 2:39 pm Re: Dude, let the monkey out - Ian M December 9, 2019, 5:19 pm Re: Dude, let the monkey out - Thomas Newfield December 9, 2019, 8:05 pm Re: Dude, let the monkey out - Ian M December 9, 2019, 10:14 pm   Searching