There's more to being a man than being a lad

MR BLAIR, Mr Straw and the nation at large have discovered that many young men are behaving badly. They are dropping out of school work, taking to drugs and crime, and are generally unco-operative, egoistical and aggressively sullen.

All sorts of theories are being advanced to explain this. One is the lack of "male role-models" in schools.

Teachers in primary schools are mostly women and therefore (the theory goes) boys regard any sort of learning as effete and girlie. (A year or two ago all the talk was of the need for "female role- models" to encourage the aspirations of girls. But fashions change quickly.) I have heard of feminist women teachers in state schools in Australia who actually forbid boys to play football or cricket on the grounds that these games are "masculinist" - which might well lead to a general boys' revolt against bossy women authority-figures. But I doubt that this sort of thing has gone very far here. Others blame the apparently increasing nihilism of young men on the feminisation of our culture. Tradi-tional masculine characteristics of tribal togetherness, the need for strong leadership - along with their complementary opposites of daring and individual assertion - are undervalued in an age which has adopted as morally superior the feminine virtues of coopera-tion, gentleness and compassion. It is true that much radical feminism really has no room for men at all and hates their traditional strengths. The constant buzz in the air, of feminist loathing of all that is exuberantly male, may possibly have undermined the self-confidence of a minority of young, middle-class white men - but I doubt if it has had any real effect on the rest of the male sex. There are still plenty of real men about. The only thing that is new is that we are supposed to be surprised that men behave badly, and are we expected to swallow the usual, bogus sociological explanations of why they do. BUT there is nothing new about delinquent males. In the fifth century BC one Alcibiades, the most brilliant, glamorous and handsome man of his time, wrecked a promising political career by roaming the streets of Athens one night mutilating the Hermae - gods of a strikingly phallic aspect - which had been set up throughout the city for an important religious festival. Alcibiades was often drunk and rowdy in public, and once tried, unsuccessfully, to seduce the philosopher Socrates at a banquet. He ended up turning traitor and working for the Greeks' enemy, the King of Persia. The Athenians seem rather to have admired Alcibiades, even if they did draw the line at his treachery. The ancient Spartans also rather approved of reckless males. They trained their sons to steal, and even to commit more serious crimes, so long as they did not get caught. This was meant to be a sign of manliness. One of their great heroes was a boy who had stolen a pet fox and hidden it under his tunic. As he was being interrogated the fox kept biting him but the boy did not cry out or admit that he had stolen anything. So he was bitten to death and was celebrated ever afterwards as a likely lad. The Emperor Nero, in the early years of his reign, used to wander the streets of Rome at night with a gang of young men, robbing and fighting solid citizens. When he addressed the Roman Senate, his face often bore the marks of blows he had received during these nocturnal exploits. Prince Hal - the future Henry V - robbed, whored and was in general a notable juvenile delinquent. He even boxed the ears of the Lord Chief Justice in his court. But he did go on to be a great king, conqueror of the French and pious son of the Church. The English always regarded Hal as the great example of a young man sowing wild oats and reaping a rich harvest. The list could go predictably on. Christopher Marlowe died in a tavern brawl, having mocked religion (he said that Moses was "a foolish conjuror" because he took 40 years to get to the Promised Land when the journey should have taken only two weeks) and insisted that "they that love not tobacco and boys be fools". Charles II surrounded himself with witty, insolent young men who drank, whored and sometimes made obscene exhibitions of themselves in the streets. Byron had an incestuous relationship with his half-sister and another with a choirboy, drank, whored and wrote excellent verse. The last point is important. Although people have often believed that wildness and overweening pride in a young man may be a sign that he will amount to something in later life (Aristotle said that young men are witty because they are insolent) this has not been the same as admiring laddish-ness. Where you really can detect signs of the success of the feminist campaign against men is the assumption which everyone seems to share that to be masculine is to be blokeish - to belch, scratch your armpits and be fanatical about football. The TV series Men Behaving Badly, very funny as it is, plays limply into the hands of the feminist conspiracy. The mediaeval Japanese samurai were expected to be brave, sometimes wild, and super-masculine. They were supposed to fight unquestioningly for their feudal lord and, if necessary, to commit the ritual suicide that involved ripping their stomach across and up. But they were also expected to enjoy incense-smelling parties, dress in exotic robes, go cherry-blossom viewing and write poetry. THE idea that lad-dishness, Gazza and fantasy football are the epitome of masculinity simply bears testimony to the prole- tarianisation of English culture since the Sixties. Remember that almost all achievements in high culture, in poetry, music, painting, philosophy, science, have been male - so much so that even radical feminists are sometimes driven to the conclusion that creativity and genius must actually be secondary male sexual characteristics. All the great prophets, and most of the greatest saints, have been men. It does not matter what you think the explanation of masculine achievement is whether you believe it is innate or the result of opportunities historically available to men and not to women. What is important is that the philistine English idea that maleness only expresses itself in laddish. buffoonery is a historical absurdity. Whether or not, dear reader, you are persuaded by what you have just read, I wager that it will be the only piece about this "problem" that does not routinely patronise the entire male sex.

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