One week ago the New York Times published a piece by columnist Thomas Edsall, “The Fight over Men Is Shaping Our Political Future.”  In large part, the piece records and responds to the “Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men” recently released by the American Psychological Association.

Like many developments of post-1960s ethics—including abortion and the transgender movement—this “fight over men” exemplified by the new APA guidelines has had the interesting effect of dividing adherents of modernism among themselves. On the one hand are the scientists. They may be atheists or agnostics, may insist on macroevolution or a Big Bounce universe; but they know their field and will not shift away from inconvenient truths. On the other hand are those whom we might call the true believers. They are so deeply involved with modernism that even scientific evidence against certain of its tenets will not persuade them to moderate their attachment.

The chief example of this, of course, is the problem of men and woman.  For decades it has been modernist dogma that men and woman are different in largely accidental ways (e.g., the ability to have a child), and that behavioral differences are the result of socialization.  The new APA guidelines take this approach, referring to “the socially constructed nature of masculinity” (APA Guidelines, 6).  Indeed, according to the APA,

Gender identity development begins before birth, shaped by the expectations that parents and other significant adults have for how a boy should be treated and how he should behave (Basow, 2006). Boys (and girls) begin to make distinctions between males and females during infancy (Banaji & Prentice, 1994) and increasingly assign certain meanings to being male based on their gender socialization experiences (David et al., 2006). Over time, a boy’s gender identity becomes crystallized and exerts a greater influence on his behavior (Banaji & Prentice, 1994). By the time he reaches adulthood, a man will tend to demonstrate behaviors as prescribed by his ethnicity, culture, and different constructions of masculinity.  (APA Guidelines, 7; italics added)

The good psychologists of the APA are concerned that many of these masculine behaviors are, in fact, damaging, to men as much as to women.  For example, “components of traditional masculinity such as emotional stoicism, homophobia, not showing vulnerability, self-reliance, and competitiveness might deter [boys and men] from forming close relationships with male peers” (11).  But of course, the good psychologist should not allow any of this to decrease his sympathy for his male patients, for “[c]linician awareness of one’s stereotypes and biases against boys and men is a critical dimension of multicultural competence” (APA Guidelines, 6).

Now I could here begin to speak anecdotally about my own experience with little boys and girls, and how different they are from infancy; but of course, it is possible that I am one of those people whose “expectations” may unintentionally shape the little people around me.  So I will quote instead from Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychology professor, atheist, equity feminist, and researcher of evolutionary psychology.  Pinker, quoted in Edsall’s article, criticized the APA guidelines for their failure to attend to biological and genetic factors that may be in play in making men what they are.

To put it another way: the fact that men and women have differently structured brains and different amounts of various chemicals and hormones in their bodies might actually, well, make a difference in how they think and act.  Little Billy J. might crash his firetruck into Suzie Q. not because his parents have taught him that “boys play rough” but because his brain and body are pushing him to act more aggressively (see Pinker’s devasting observation that “[t]he word ‘testosterone’ appears nowhere in the [APA] report”).

The APA guidelines seem to suggest that men would be better off if society could rewrite what being male means.  But—if Pinker’s evolutionary science is correct—then that simply isn’t possible.  Instead of trying to come up with a new, safer concept of “maleness” to imprint on little boys, Pinker suggests that psychologists embrace the positive side of traditional masculinity.

… a huge and centuries-long change in Western history, starting from the Middle Ages, was a “Civilizing Process” in which the ideal of manhood changed from a macho willingness to retaliate violently to an insult to the ability to exert self-control, dignity, reserve, and duty. It’s the culture of the gentleman, the man of dignity and quiet strength, the mensch.  (Pinker, in Edsall.)

In sum: the APA’s idea is to solve the problems of masculinity by changing the way men feel, the way it feels to be male; Pinker’s suggestion is that men should learn to control their feelings: “One could argue that what today’s men need is more encouragement to enhance one side of the masculine virtues the dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance—while inhibiting others, such as machismo, violence, and drive for dominance.”  (Not a bad suggestion for anyone, male or female, that!)

Here, of course, is the irony.  Pinker’s position, which is backed by respectable scientists in his field, is little different from the normative attitude taken by—well, in Pinker’s words, the “Western” world, “starting from the Middle Ages.”  In other words: beginning with Christian Western Europe and continuing on through the Catholic Church today, the approach to male and female differences and flaws has been one of acknowledgement, understanding, and encouragement to do better.  Oh, indeed, there are glaring examples of men behaving badly throughout Western history; and plenty of those examples were sanctioned by various representatives of Church and State.  But the overall trend, up through the present day, has been (as Pinker notes) to civilize us savages.

For men this means, indeed, learning to conquer peculiarly male vices; but the result is not the elimination of male traits such as (to quote the APA again) “stoicism,” “self-reliance,” or “competitiveness.”  For the male stoicism which can become a vice of indifference to others (or self) is a virtue when it enables a man to endure hardship (job loss, illness, etc.); the self-reliance that can isolate a man is also what enables him to become self- and family-supporting; and the competitiveness that leads immature men to delight in putting down others is also what leads men to invent new products, discover new theories, or even just make a work deadline on time.

The Catholic Church has been realistic in these matters, not seeking to assert identity between men and women, but rather urging both to live out their identities to the fullest.  Indeed, in its ameliorist view of human nature—grounded in the hope of eternal life—the Church has arguably presented one of the most positive (as well as realistic) visions of humanity the world has ever seen.  The traits which an evolutionary psychologist like Pinker sees as genetically and biologically determined, the Church acknowledges as part of the human person; but where Pinker must rely on social encouragement to turn those traits in a positive direction, the Church has a second, older, and more powerful kind of tool: grace.

It’s an odd world in which an atheist Ivy League professor of Jewish extraction ends up on the same page as Pope John Paul II.  But that’s the world we’re living in today: one in which common sense is becoming so daring a quality that the only people who can still talk to each other are whichever rare and oftentimes disparate parties still care about the truth.