I recently put forth an article titled: ‘How ‘Toxic’ Masculinity Will Save Itself – It Always Does’. My original motivation to write that piece was to address what is becoming, a regular periodic outburst against men by the ‘woke’. While writing it [no robots here], further paths in the theme opened, particularly from my own experience. I follow one such path here. Masculinity threatens those that instinctively know they should have it but cannot muster it, therefore they rail against those that have it. One such outburst occurred after the medical cardiac emergency experienced during a recent NFL game by the Buffalo Bills player, Damar Hamlin, an event from which he nearly died. That was enough proof to the effete that football was too violent, too masculine, a cultural force of destruction. Predictably, they called for the abolition of the sport. If Hamlin had died on the field, the nation would have gone into shock and may have even seriously considered some of the woke arguments. A death in the NFL during time of play and from impact experienced on the field would have been unprecedented. I felt very disturbed by this prospect but not for reasons that most people would suspect. My first line of work as a young man was as a journeyman in heavy construction. During that seven-year tenure, four of my peers and supervisors died directly in the course of work.
The contrast that I lay out here is far broader than the slice of culture war dealing with masculinity. That may have come through in my prior referenced article on the same topic. The greater underlying struggle is classist. All things woke float as if on a slender film of ice over a deep water. The woke can afford to rage against the rest of ‘ignorant’ humanity only because of the depth of sacrifice from millions of people who labor silently for them but find the woke sick, entitled, and spoiled. That support extends along an axis of time as well, because of countless generations before them, tended first toward survival, then progress, and then comfort that the woke now betray and exploit.
Graduating from my high school exactly in the middle of my class academically, I was nevertheless not bound for college. I couldn’t meet any of the entry standards at that time, a lot more rigorous than today, especially in math and several other academic requisites, so I started post high school in the trades. Heavy construction in this case involved bridges, piers, and other heavy infrastructure. It required 40+ hours a week, year-round, in weather with temperatures ranging from 0 to 100 degrees and around equipment and work that was extremely dangerous no matter what safety programs were followed. It involved climbing high steel, walking icy decks and working over water constantly. I don’t remember my exact wage but it started somewhere between $7 – $8 per hour.
The first peer – coworker to die was during the first winter. I don’t remember his name, but he died when a steel sheet pile, about 6-8 tons I’d guess, slipped from the pile driving machine grip. It sliced his neck and torso about a foot deep into his body before he fell into the water from a height of about forty feet. He was dead before he hit the water. I didn’t see it happen, but I still remember another worker pulling back the sheet just enough to show me the wound.
The second death, Herman S., was my first foreman, whom at the time was working with a separate crew up at the other end of a below grade chasm with about two feet of mud at the bottom. The light steel piece he had wrapped and attached to the crane hook, it wasn’t the right type of sling and as it swung over his head, it slipped out, hit and killed him.
The third death was another foreman, Jimmy E. I had recently been working under him. He was taking apart a crane boom and stood in the wrong place while removing a steel pin. His head was crushed by the falling boom. Jimmy E. also had just recently possibly saved my own life or at least prevented serious injury. I stepped through a hope in a form. He saw it happening and literally caught me. Had he not been there, I would have had at least a compound fracture and long-term disability, possibly even death.
The fourth and last fatality, that I was aware of, a former co-worker, Butch M.; he died in another pile driving accident. I don’t know the details. I had recently left that employment, but he was a guy I knew, liked, and had some conversations with.
All four were experienced, doing intensely dangerous work. Some made mistakes, some didn’t. All four were working on large scale infrastructure that you, I, and the woke ride over and benefit from every day without even thinking of it.
Football is hyper masculine. Heavy construction is even more masculine except in ways that are silent and invisible. A football player does a few reps, then sits in recovery, then goes out for a few more. The season is approximately 6 months of occasional bursts of energy, controlled strength training, and a great deal of luxury. They take tremendous impact but with shields and padding. Many types of tradesmen take significant sustained stress directly on their body and do so for 8+ hours every working day of the year. When one falls, is electrocuted, is crushed, there is silence, and the world goes on. The surviving families are obscure, lacking class standing, and almost always have no real wealth.
The weak effeminate identity activist and woke hucksters of today are all over the notion of shutting down a popular high-profile sport that they perceive to be enjoyed by others not like their own pallid flaccid selves. The masculinity inherent in football seems like an easy target. It’s brash, televised; in their mind, rubbed in everyone’s face. They’d be delighted to see it go away. But would they be just as delighted to see a masculinity far more ubiquitous and widespread also disappear? Would they be just as happy to see bridges left to decay, piers receiving their foreign made toys, shoes and purses, computer chips and such, all left to disrepair? I’d say not. Their outrage is selective, classist, and for their own maximized convenience only.
The lesson here is that masculinity has a cost. The woke want it’s benefits for free, the benefits that they don’t have a clue even exists. All the fruits of civilization’s accumulated and accrued masculinity just magically appeared one day for their pleasure, enjoyment, and distain. The culture warriors they most vehemently despise, the ones fighting for masculinity, are ultimately saving the woke’s platform to live in contemptuous ignorance.