Reason Number 12, Why I Believe in Intelligent Design
Below, reproduced verbatim from the NY Times Magazine (Sunday, March 12), is an interview with Harvey Mansfield (HM). Quite possibly one of the most ridiculous human beings ever to take air off this earth.
OF MANLINESS AND MEN
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON (DS)
Interludes by AVI GUTER (AG)
DS: As a staunch neoconservative and the author of a new feminism-bashing book called "Manliness," how are you treated by your fellow government professors at Harvard?
HM: Look, if I only consorted with conservatives, I would be by myself all the time.
AG: That may not be a bad thing. Harvey, think about it. With all that alone time you wouldn't have to associate with all those incapable, inferior women.
DS: So your generally left-leaning colleagues are willing to talk to you?
HM: People listen to me, but they don't pay attention to what I say. I should punch them out, but I don't.
AG: "I'm Harvey Mansfeild, I do what I want." Let's be honest. Have you seen yourself lately? Just because your arthritic hands don't open up doesn't mean you've made a fist.
DS: In your latest book, you bemoan the disappearance of manliness in our "gender neutral" society. How, exactly, would you define manliness?
HM: My quick definition is confidence in a situation of risk. A manly man has to know what he is doing.
DS: Hasn't technology lessened the need for risk taking, at least of the physical sort?
AG: Deborah, here's where you and I disagree. I was playing Wolfenstien, the Nazi killer video game the other day. I don't know about you but that's risk. I was litterally in hand to hand combat with a real leather booted Nazi...my health was down to 2...I barely managed to escape...that is risk Deborah.
HM: It has. But it hasn't removed it. Technology gives you the instruments, and social sciences give you the rules. But manliness is more a quality of the soul.
AG: I thought that was morality, not manliness? You got your "m's" confused Harvey.
DS: How does someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger stack up?
HM: I would include him as a manly man.
AG: You sure he's not a girly man?
DS: But doesn't he exemplify the sort of man whose overdeveloped muscles are intended to mask feelings of insecurity?
AG: Deborah, do you want Arnold to kick the shit out of us here...I'm not going to be on your side if you keep insulting the Terminator.
HM: Yes, but then he stepped up to become governor of California. He took a risk with his reputation.
DS: What about President Bush? He's a risk taker, but wouldn't his penchant for long vacations be a strike against him?
HM: I wouldn't say industriousness is a sign of manliness. That's sort of wonkish. Experts do that.
DS: What about Dick Cheney?
HM: He hunts. And he curses openly. Lynne Cheney is kind of manly, too. I once worked with her on the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AG: You just called Lynne Cheney a man. Dick has a dude for a husband and a daughter that wishes she were a dude...there's a lotta dick in that family.
DS: In your book, you say Margaret Thatcher is an ideal woman, but isn't she the manliest of all?
HM: I was told by someone who visited her that she is very feminine with her husband.
DS: Why is that so important to you in light of her other achievements?
HM: We need roles. Roles give us mutual expectations of what is either correct or good behavior. Women are neater than men, they make nests, and all these other stereotypes are mostly true. Wives and mothers correct you; they hold you to a standard; they want to make you better.
AG: I'm pretty sure your mom wishes she hadn't even made you...let alone try to make you better.
DS: I am beginning to wonder if you have ever spoken to a woman. Your ideas are so Victorian.
AG: Good call Deborah. The Victorians did make some nice houses though...so let's try to lay off the Vics.
HM: I have a young wife who grew up in the feminist revolution, and even though she is not a feminist, she wants to benefit from it. I wash the dishes, and I make the bed.
DS: How young is she, exactly?
HM: She's 60. I'm 73.
AG: You dog you.
DS: Were you sorry to see Harvard's outgoing president, Lawrence Summers, attacked for saying that men and women may have different mental capacities?
AG: What do you think Deborah? I'm pretty confident Harvey thinks women have no mental capacity.
HM: He was taking seriously the notion that women, innately, have less capacity than men at the highest level of science. I think it's probably true. It's common sense if you just look at who the top scientists are.
AG: I'm puttin you up there Harvey...I like you. I wonder who would win in a fight though. You or Darwin?
DS: But couldn't that simply reflect the institutional bias against women over the centuries?
HM: It could, but I don't think it does. We have been going a couple of generations now. There are certain things that haven't changed. For example, in New York City, the doormen are still 98 percent men.
AG: I think that's because doors are still 98 percent closed. They don't open themselves you know? What was your point here anyway?
DS: Yes, but fewer jobs depend on that sort of physical brawn as society becomes more technologically adept. Physical advantages are practically meaningless now that men are no longer hunter-gatherers.
HM: I disagree with that.
AG: You would.
DS: When was the last time you did something that required physical strength?
AG: Deborah, he had sex with a woman that is 13 years his junior last night...give him some credit.
HM: It's true that nothing in my career requires physical strength, but in my relations with women, yes.
AG: See, I told you Deborah.
DS: Such as?
HM: Lifting things, opening things. My wife is quite small.
AG: You're tellin' me Harvey.
DS: What do you lift?
HM: Furniture. Not every night, but routinely
AG: That reminds me, Harvey I've been meaning to ask you, I think my couch would look better on the far side of the living room, you know by the bay window...are you going to be around this weekend?
OF MANLINESS AND MEN
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON (DS)
Interludes by AVI GUTER (AG)
DS: As a staunch neoconservative and the author of a new feminism-bashing book called "Manliness," how are you treated by your fellow government professors at Harvard?
HM: Look, if I only consorted with conservatives, I would be by myself all the time.
AG: That may not be a bad thing. Harvey, think about it. With all that alone time you wouldn't have to associate with all those incapable, inferior women.
DS: So your generally left-leaning colleagues are willing to talk to you?
HM: People listen to me, but they don't pay attention to what I say. I should punch them out, but I don't.
AG: "I'm Harvey Mansfeild, I do what I want." Let's be honest. Have you seen yourself lately? Just because your arthritic hands don't open up doesn't mean you've made a fist.
DS: In your latest book, you bemoan the disappearance of manliness in our "gender neutral" society. How, exactly, would you define manliness?
HM: My quick definition is confidence in a situation of risk. A manly man has to know what he is doing.
DS: Hasn't technology lessened the need for risk taking, at least of the physical sort?
AG: Deborah, here's where you and I disagree. I was playing Wolfenstien, the Nazi killer video game the other day. I don't know about you but that's risk. I was litterally in hand to hand combat with a real leather booted Nazi...my health was down to 2...I barely managed to escape...that is risk Deborah.
HM: It has. But it hasn't removed it. Technology gives you the instruments, and social sciences give you the rules. But manliness is more a quality of the soul.
AG: I thought that was morality, not manliness? You got your "m's" confused Harvey.
DS: How does someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger stack up?
HM: I would include him as a manly man.
AG: You sure he's not a girly man?
DS: But doesn't he exemplify the sort of man whose overdeveloped muscles are intended to mask feelings of insecurity?
AG: Deborah, do you want Arnold to kick the shit out of us here...I'm not going to be on your side if you keep insulting the Terminator.
HM: Yes, but then he stepped up to become governor of California. He took a risk with his reputation.
DS: What about President Bush? He's a risk taker, but wouldn't his penchant for long vacations be a strike against him?
HM: I wouldn't say industriousness is a sign of manliness. That's sort of wonkish. Experts do that.
DS: What about Dick Cheney?
HM: He hunts. And he curses openly. Lynne Cheney is kind of manly, too. I once worked with her on the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AG: You just called Lynne Cheney a man. Dick has a dude for a husband and a daughter that wishes she were a dude...there's a lotta dick in that family.
DS: In your book, you say Margaret Thatcher is an ideal woman, but isn't she the manliest of all?
HM: I was told by someone who visited her that she is very feminine with her husband.
DS: Why is that so important to you in light of her other achievements?
HM: We need roles. Roles give us mutual expectations of what is either correct or good behavior. Women are neater than men, they make nests, and all these other stereotypes are mostly true. Wives and mothers correct you; they hold you to a standard; they want to make you better.
AG: I'm pretty sure your mom wishes she hadn't even made you...let alone try to make you better.
DS: I am beginning to wonder if you have ever spoken to a woman. Your ideas are so Victorian.
AG: Good call Deborah. The Victorians did make some nice houses though...so let's try to lay off the Vics.
HM: I have a young wife who grew up in the feminist revolution, and even though she is not a feminist, she wants to benefit from it. I wash the dishes, and I make the bed.
DS: How young is she, exactly?
HM: She's 60. I'm 73.
AG: You dog you.
DS: Were you sorry to see Harvard's outgoing president, Lawrence Summers, attacked for saying that men and women may have different mental capacities?
AG: What do you think Deborah? I'm pretty confident Harvey thinks women have no mental capacity.
HM: He was taking seriously the notion that women, innately, have less capacity than men at the highest level of science. I think it's probably true. It's common sense if you just look at who the top scientists are.
AG: I'm puttin you up there Harvey...I like you. I wonder who would win in a fight though. You or Darwin?
DS: But couldn't that simply reflect the institutional bias against women over the centuries?
HM: It could, but I don't think it does. We have been going a couple of generations now. There are certain things that haven't changed. For example, in New York City, the doormen are still 98 percent men.
AG: I think that's because doors are still 98 percent closed. They don't open themselves you know? What was your point here anyway?
DS: Yes, but fewer jobs depend on that sort of physical brawn as society becomes more technologically adept. Physical advantages are practically meaningless now that men are no longer hunter-gatherers.
HM: I disagree with that.
AG: You would.
DS: When was the last time you did something that required physical strength?
AG: Deborah, he had sex with a woman that is 13 years his junior last night...give him some credit.
HM: It's true that nothing in my career requires physical strength, but in my relations with women, yes.
AG: See, I told you Deborah.
DS: Such as?
HM: Lifting things, opening things. My wife is quite small.
AG: You're tellin' me Harvey.
DS: What do you lift?
HM: Furniture. Not every night, but routinely
AG: That reminds me, Harvey I've been meaning to ask you, I think my couch would look better on the far side of the living room, you know by the bay window...are you going to be around this weekend?
posted by Hungry at 9:58 PM
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