I recently came across this video of a slam poetry Millennial guy protesting the phrase “man up.” I’ve talked before about how today’s younger men are turning into pussies, and my responses to these men’s irrational arguments. This video, while I don’t disagree with all of it, is emblematic of the complaints modern-day young men have about taking charge of their life and getting to work to fix or improve it.

-By Caleb Jones

I get into this, I want to make it clear that in many respects, young men do indeed have it worse than young men of prior generations. I have talked about this in great detail in all of my books and blogs. The slowly collapsing civilization, declining culture, left-wing politics, massive government overspending, and massive money printing and currency devaluation have all rendered things like making a living and getting (and staying) married more difficult for men than ever before.

Of course this is all true. My disagreement is not with the problem, but with men’s reaction to the problem.

1. Becoming a loser and hiding behind video games is not the answer.

2. Becoming more woman-like is not the answer.

3. Whining on websites about how much everything sucks is not the answer.

4. Looking a white knight to sweep in and fix all of your problems is not the answer, and it doesn’t matter if his name is Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. (The systemic problems you want these men to fix can’t be fixed anyway.)

No, the answer is to adopt a system of success that works within today’s shitty, real-world realities, and get what you want, or at least most of what you want, despite today’s new problems. That’s what building an Alpha Male 2.0 life is all about.
The guy in the video gives “Ten Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up.’” I will summarize and respond to each one. To get the full context, just watch the video. Here is his first response:

1. Fuck you.

Though it may not feel like it, usually someone telling you to man up is trying to help you. Rarely are they trying to insult you, attack you, or make you feel bad. They’re telling you that you need to get some balls so that you can fix whatever problem you’re currently experiencing.

“Fuck you” is an easy response, but try to remember that you’re saying that to someone who is legitimately trying to help you. For many years, I have been personally attacked and insulted by numerous men who I was actually trying to help, even if some of the blunt, tough-guy verbiage I used didn’t seem like help was being offered.

2. Not every problem can be solved by “manning up.” That won’t help chemical depression. The CEO who laid you off doesn’t care how much you bench.

If you define manning up as flexing your biceps, or bench pressing, or drinking beer, then you are correct. But you know that the admonition to man up is usually not given in that context. Usually, the context of “man up” means “take some fucking responsibility for yourself and get to work.”

As much as some of you fragile snowflakes hate to hear this, everything in your life is your fault. This is good news, not bad news. This means you have the power to fix, or at least dramatically improve, any problem you encounter.

So yes, manning up will indeed help you address your chemical depression. There are all kinds of effective treatments for chemical depression. Manning up means doing those things, rather than sitting around and whining about how much your life sucks.

And yes, manning up will indeed help you find a new job (or start a small business) much faster if you’re laid off. When you man up, you’ll suck it up and get to work to find a new source of income. Soon, you’ll have one. If you don’t man up, you’ll go on food stamps and play video games and your problem will continue.

3. You think that by saying “man up,” that instantly turns me into some kind of Superman. That’s bullshit.

Correct. If you man up, you’re still the same flawed man you were a few minutes ago. Manning up isn’t going to make you a million dollars next week or get you laid tomorrow.
However, taking responsibly for your actions and conditions and taking the action to solve/improve those conditions will eventually make you a better man, who lives a better life. It won’t happen instantly. It won’t happen tomorrow. It probably won’t even happen next month, but it will happen. It can’t not happen (unless you’re a complete, hopeless idiot).

4. Why free ourselves from our chains, when we can simply compare their lengths?

I can’t really answer this one, since in the video he completely contradicts his answer halfway through. Either he’s being sarcastic, in which case I agree with him (since, as I talk about in my book, getting out of the box is better than staying in the box, even if getting out of the box is painful), or he’s complaining that being manly for manliness’ sake is stupid, in which case I still agree.

5. No one ever says “woman up,” because women learned a long time ago that being ordered around by commercials, magazines, and music is dehumanizing. When will men figure that out?

Commercials? Um, do you mean those commercials that almost universally portray husbands and boyfriends as stupid and wives and girlfriends as smart and in-charge?

Do you mean the constant slew of Top 40 music that portrays men as being hyper-needy, oneitis-stricken beta males?

Are you seriously telling me that the mass media only “orders around” women and not men?

Are you fucking kidding me?

And you’re right; people don’t tell women to “woman up.” You know why? Because most of the time, if a woman requires some true heavy lifting (figurative or literal), she’s going to rely on either a man to do it or government to do it (which is mostly funded by men).

As I’ve talked about many times, most women don’t have to woman up. Boyfriends, husbands, friend zone guys, and/or the welfare state will take care of them. As a man, I don’t really have the option of going to Match.com and finding some woman who will marry me and pay most or all of my bills for me for the rest of my life. Women do. As a man, I don’t have the option of having a baby or two pop out of my body and getting free money from my government because of it for as long as I want. Women do. Et cetera. Of course people don’t tell women to “women up.”
6. The phrase “man up” suggests that competence and perseverance are uniquely masculine traits. This is offensive to both women and men who act more feminine.

Oh boy. This one has “Millennial” written all over it. No other generation in my lifetime, be it the World War II generation, the Baby Boomers, or my Generation X, each with all of their own problems, has never been this touchy or oversensitive about identity politics or the use of certain words.

I hear this kind of hypersensitive, pussy bullshit from the Millennial generation on almost a daily basis, and that even includes Millennials who are not going to college, as well as those who are more right-wing.

If I tell you to man up, and you immediately assume that I devalue women or less masculine men, you are either:

1. Hypersensitive beyond belief and require mental health counseling,

2. A college student, and need to drop out of college immediately before the politically correct brainwashing in your mind is made permanent or,

3. A lazy male bitch who is trying to make excuses to get out of taking charge of your life and getting to work.

7. How many boys have to kill themselves before this country acknowledges the problem?

What is the problem you’re referring to? Are you seriously telling me that parents are harder on boys now than they were decades ago, when your dad made you do chores every day and when you were hit with a belt whenever you talked back to him? Back when you had no internet, no computer, no smartphone, no movies at home, and no microwave oven?
Really, Snowflake? Are we really harder on boys now, in terms of telling them to man up, than in the 1930s?
Or are we softer on today’s men? A lot softer?

8. Boy babies get blue socks. Girl babies get pink socks. What about purple socks?

What’s wrong with society assigning a specific color to each gender? Is this really such a serious problem?

9. I want to be able to express myself emotionally. I want to have meaningful, emotional relationships with other people, including other men.

Finally, something we agree on. Yes, the angry, repressed, right-wing, overly-religious Alpha Male 1.0 father yelling at his son to “man up and stop crying” is not a good idea, and does more harm than good. Telling someone to man up and stop crying, or to stop feeling bad, is a waste of everyone’s time and doesn’t help anything.

However, telling someone to man up in order to get into action and get moving to solve or alleviate the problems that a man is having is not only warranted, but something we in our society don’t do enough of any more.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad if something bad happens to you. There is something wrong with feeling bad and sitting around, doing nothing about it other than complaining about it on the internet.
Feel bad all you want, but feel bad while you’re taking action to better your life. In other words, man up.

10. No.

You don’t want to man up? That’s fine. I’m an individualist, and I think everyone should make their own decisions in life and be allowed to do so. However, this means accepting the results of your decisions.

Refusing to man up is fine, but it also means:

1. You will never be happy. Your life will oscillate from shitty to mediocre for the rest of your days.

2. You will never be free. Your life will be forever controlled by men who have more money/power than you, and by women.

3. You will never live the life you really want. You will spend the rest of your life looking at other men who have what you want and burn with anger, jealousy, and sadness.

So sure. Don’t man up. Just sit around and complain about how much everything sucks, and how nothing is fair, and how women, or Muslims, or Trump supporters, or SJWs have screwed up your society. Just sit around like a child, playing video games and watching Netflix, and wait around forever for someone else to fix your problems, which will never happen.
Or, you could man up, and live the life you want, or at least close to it.
The choice is yours.

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